By Rebecca Fox
I’m a huge fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. His wrestling persona is
extremely entertaining and he’s a pretty decent actor. He did good with this movie but it wasn’t enough.
The premise of the movie is based on ‘true events’ (whatever that
means), it’s more about a law that’s real in our country right now, I’ll get in to that later.
There are a lot of characters so stick with me. The Rock plays John
Matthews, he owns his own construction business. He has an ex-wife, Sylvie Collins played by Melina Kanakaredes, and a current wife, Analisa played by Nadine Velazquez.
Johnand Analisa
have a daughter Isabella and he has a son with Sylvie, Jason Collins played by Rafi Gavron. The other major players are Barry Pepper who plays undercover DEA agent Cooper; Susan Sarandon who plays Joanne Keeghan a US Attorney; Jon Bernthal
who plays Daniel James an ex-con trying to get his life back together; Michael Kenneth Williams who plays Malik, a drug dealer; and Benjamin Bratt who plays Cartel leader Juan Carlos. Out of all of these, I liked Daniel, Agent Cooper, John Matthews, Malik and
Joanne Keeghan, in that order.
The law the movie is based on is about mandatory minimums. If you are
holding and it’s enough to distribute then you go to jail. The length of your jail time is based on how
much you are holding when you’re caught. In this case, Jason, who is 18 and still in high
school, is set up by his ‘best friend’. This friend sends him a huge bag of ecstasy against Jason’s wishes.
When the package arrives Jason gets caught because it’s a
sting. His jail time based on the amount of ecstasy is ten years in a prison that holds murderers, rapist and violent criminals.
The movie starts excruciatingly slow, the real action doesn’t start until
almost halfway through, or at least it felt like it. It’s good once you get there but I wasn’t really into
the people in it/living it. I kept thinking of the actors as themselves not the characters
they were playing, even the ones I liked. There were too many close ups and‘in action’ scenes that involved someone with a camera running or walking next to the actor.
I getthat it was to try and build apprehension and anxiety but it was more annoying and kept pulling me out of the story so I couldn’t connect emotionally with the characters.
I didn’t believe the union between John and Analisa or that there had been one with Sylvie, there was no familiarity and I didn’t believe the love or tension between them.
John was a business man who’s never seen action so he’s kind of a wuss, but it’s the Rock, a huge tall muscle-y intense looking guy. Whenever he flinched I kept waiting for him to kick ass but he never does.
Then in another scene he’s magically badass, shooting
a shotgun one handed out of the window of a semi-truck he’s driving.
The movie was more about showing people this heinous law then entertainingus. I don’t like that, it’s not why I go to movies. The only saving grace would have been if it had been really entertaining but it was only mildly entertaining at best.
I’d say rent it if you like the Rock or if you’re curious, it wouldn’t be too much of a waste of your time but
definitely don’t waste your money in a theatre.
2.5 out of 5.
