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Rundown (The)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Universal Pictures Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (14th April 2009). |
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The Film
 Buddy movies are not a new concept, Hollywood has been making them for a long time now, from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in those great adventures they had in the "Laurel and Hardy" series of films (1931-1940) to more recent buddy film team-ups such as Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold in the "Beverly Hills Cop" series (1984-1994), Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the "Lethal Weapon" series (1987-1998) and of course Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the "Rush Hour" films (1998-2007) and now we have another addition to the buddy film genre thanks to actor-turned-director Peter Berg with "The Rundown" (or as it's known overseas "Welcome to the Jungle") with Seann William Scott and the biggest thing in wrestling circa 2003, the most electrifying man in sports entertainment The Rock or as he's known now by his given name Dwayne Johnson. Johnson plays Beck an aspiring chef that dreams of opening a small restaurant one day but lives out each day under the hand of mob boss Billy Walker (William Lucking) working as a retrieval expert, Beck wants out of the business once and for all and decides to take one last job. Once completed Billy will grant Beck his freedom from the retrieval business. All he has to do is go to El Dorado, Brazil and bring Billy's son Travis (Seann William Scott) back to L.A. This tasks proves easier said than done, as Beck has to deal with Declan (Ewan Bremner) a crazy pilot, the iron-fisted slave driver Hatcher (played to over-the-top perfection by Christopher Walken), a bunch of pygmy warriors and a relentless jungle. Having landed in El Dorado and just after having struck a deal with Hatcher, Beck finds Travis in a local bar attended by a local woman Mariana (Rosario Dawson). He secures his catch but Hatcher and his men get wind of a rumour that Travis has located a sacred and valuable artefact and decides to go against the accord he agreed upon with Beck and will not allow Travis to leave Brazil until he has the location of the treasure. This new development does not sit well with Beck. Having confronted and beaten Hatcher's men, Beck and Travis make their way back to the airstrip and hopefully out of the godforsaken jungle, but when Travis causes their car to careen off the site of a cliff, he and Beck are stuck in the jungle and must find their way out before Hatcher's men find them first. After having seen the rather awful "The Scorpion King" (2002), I was hoping that The Rock was just a fad that would die away within a year, He didn't really strike me as the kind of person that could carry an entire movie, I was wrong, he can with a little help from the very funny Seann William Scott. You see, buddy films are an interesting breed of genre, because you can have an outrageous plot, over the top characters and ridiculous situations that ask the audience to suspend their disbelief longer than most films ask you to, which sometimes is a hard sell but one thing and one thing only can save a buddy film from just being a lame over the top flop... and that is good casting. If the chemistry is right and the actors are having fun with their characters to the point that it literally draws you into the film, that's when the audience is ready to accept a hell of a lot. And this film, I'm happy to report does exactly that, almost all of the funniest moments of the film are shared between these two and to add to the excitement the action set pieces are thrilling to watch, especially the pygmy fight sequence and the final showdown with Hatcher, when you have Jackie Chan's fight choreographer Andy Cheng on your side then you can expect some great fight sequences. This combination almost makes you forget the paper-thin plot, but if you're in for a fun ride with lots of laughs, great characters and a lot of cool action then "The Rundown" will deliver exactly that. This film is certainly recommended.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this transfer comes to Blu-ray in high-definition 1080p 24/fps and has been mastered using VC-1 compression. This appears to be same transfer Universal used on the HD DVD release of the film. The film's look can be grainy at times, and thus the noise tends to affect the black levels. The colors are also heightened and at times over saturated, note that this is the aesthetic look of the film and this transfer does a decent job of presenting that. The colors can be a bit blown out at times especially the whites. The detail is excellent here, from close-ups to backgrounds and wide location shots look solid, the luscious greens of the jungle really come out in this transfer. Skin tones appear natural, texture holds up well and the image is clean.
Audio
There are three audio tracks here, an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as DTS 5.1 tracks in French or Spanish. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS-HD audio. This is an action packed film and the surround mix uses all channels to immerse the viewer. Your home theater system will be put through a rigorous workout as the sound is aggressive, intensive and displays great depth. Dialogue is clear and distortion free, the action scenes explode with a robust sound mix that features natural sounding effects from bullet hits to explosions etc. The film's score adds a further layer to the dynamic mix and overall it's a powerful audio track that'll put a smile on action fans' faces. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish.
Extras
Universal includes a bevy of extras such as two feature-length audio commentary tracks, several featurettes and some deleted scenes. Below is a closer look at these supplements. Lets start with the first extra on the disc, an audio commentary by director Peter Berg and the star of the show Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. I was really looking forward to this track, hoping to hear about how these two got together for the film and perhaps let us in on how they approached certain scenes, but this was far from an informative commentary, the two just chatter away as if friends meeting for a coffee, they tell a few jokes and make comments on some scenes with the occasional silent gaps, the commentary was amusing at times but there is nothing here worth repeated listening. The second audio commentary features producers Marc Abraham and Kevin Misher, this track is only slightly better than the first in the sense that the two producers let us in on the origins of the production and their involvement. This track includes some very nice informative bits, but doesn't go into too much detail. Once you've had a chance to listen to the audio commentaries the next extras on the menu are the featurettes, of which there are six. The first entitled "Rumble in the Jungle" running at 10 minutes 32 seconds, this is your standard EPK style featurette, a rather amusing clip that focuses on behind-the-scenes material and interviews with the actors to give you general information on the making of the film. The next featurette is "The Amazon, Hawaii Style" running at 5 minutes 27 seconds, this clip follows the film crews' shoot in Hawaii as the double for a Brazilian rainforest and we discover why they didn't shoot in Brazil. The third featurette "Appetite for Destruction" runs 8 minutes 20 seconds and focuses on the stunts, mainly the wire choreographed fight sequences, the bus explosion, the toppling of the water tower in the main town and the bull stampede at the end. The next featurette is the very funny "The Rundown Uncensored: A Rock-umentary" this is a cheeky expose on The Rock's relationship with a Baboon co-star Kamila, they expose all the dirty secrets of their on-set love affair. This is bar none the funniest extra on this disc and runs for 6 minutes 8 seconds. The fifth featurette "Running Down the Town" runs for 4 minutes 9 seconds and is a tour of the Brazilian village set by production designer Thomas Duffield, he explains the research involved and the building process of getting the right look. The whole set was actually built on a back lot in California. The sixth and final featurette on this disc is the "Walken's World" running 5 minutes 33 seconds, This is your general appreciation piece, where everyone gives Walken a pat on the back for being such a great guy and a wonderful performer. Following the featurettes we get to the 8 deleted scenes and an alternate ending, they are presented as one continuous reel that runs for 13 minutes 50 seconds. It would have been nice to include some commentary explaining why these scenes where cut out of the film, or even some notes would have sufficed. They are rather rough and ungraded most probably ported directly from the avid screens. Most of them are actually extended scenes, but they include: - An extended scene with Beck and his Boss Billy Walker at the beginning of the film. - An extended scene of Beck with Declan in the airplane. - An extended scene where Beck beats up on Travis after the Jeep/cliff fall scene. - A deleted scene showing Mariana travelling through the jungle being chased and captured by Hatcher's men. - A deleted scene of Hatcher watching through a surveillance camera Mariana being escorted by his armed men. - Extended scene of the bull stampede, with a few more gun battle bits as well. - A deleted mud fight with Travis and Hatcher goon Harvey that takes places after the water tower collapse scene. - An extended scene with Beck and Travis back in L.A. at Billy's place. - And an alternative extended ending with some additional dialogue spoken by Hatcher. You can bookmark your favorite scenes using the 'MyScenes" feature as well. Finally there are BD-Live features with online downloads for profile 2.0 players only.
Overall
"The Rundown" is great action adventure buddy comedy, although the plot is rather thin, you'll forget all about it once the action starts. The chemistry between The Rock and Seann William Scott is just amazing and the over the top performance from Christopher Walken is the icing on the cake. This is a very enjoyable film that will please most people looking for a good time.
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