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MGM Pictures
The Rock plays an Army sergeant who returns to his hometown to discover that the lumber mill has closed and the only moneymaker is a corrupt casino.
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One of the big hits of 1973 was Walking Tall, based on the real-life
story of Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser who wielded a big stick as he
took on the thugs of a gambling operation that had turned his town into
a tawdry place and murdered his wife.
Joe Don Baker played him in the the film, which was so successful that
it spawned two sequels, both of which starred Bo Svenson.
Thirty-one years later the new Walking Tall stars The Rock (a.k.a.
Dwayne Johnson), a former wrestler-turned-actor and heir apparent to the
action movie crown once worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester
Stallone.
This contemporary Walking Tall is not a remake, but an attempt to cast a
once-popular title in a new light. It is, as it says up front, "inspired
by a true story," which means that anything goes.
The Rock doesn't plays Pusser, but Chris Vaughn, an end-of-service Army
sergeant who returns to his once genteel hometown in the Pacific
Northwest to discover that the lumber mill has closed and the only
moneymaker is a gambling casino run by boyhood friend Jay Hamilton (Neal
McDonough), who has turned the place into a sleazy den of thieves. The
dice games are crooked, there's nude dancing in a back room and hints of
prostitution. The police force is in the pocket of the casino bosses.
Worse, Chris' nephew has overdosed on drugs that are being pedaled by
the casino's security staff.
If nothing else, Walking Tall paints such an unappealing view of the
effects of a gambling casino on a hard-luck small town that you'd think
the anti-casino forces in Rhode Island would arrange for screenings to
every legislator in the General Assembly and to every voter should it
appear on November's ballot . . . certainly to every West Warwick
resident.
Walking Tall, which is dedicated to Pusser at the end, follows the
basics of the old plot, but with perhaps even more mayhem and realistic
violence. After discovering a crooked pair of dice, Chris intervenes but
is beaten mercilessly and then is shredded with a razor blade. When he
discovers his nephew has been given drugs by the casino staff, he takes
a large piece of lumber to the gambling hall's interior. This endears
him to the rest of the townspeople and he becomes sheriff, vowing to end
the corruption and the sleaze with his trusty piece of lumber which has
been fashioned into a mean-looking bat.
Like the original Walking Tall and other revenge films, such as Charles
Bronson's Death Wish series, this new Walking Tall has great audience
appeal because it uses graphic violence to a good end -- getting rid of
the bad guys, the legal process be damned. It promotes a tide of good
will for the man who stands alone and does what he thinks is right, a
quality that has carried President Bush far with Americans, if not with
others on the world stage. Walking Tall is a microcosm of that.
There's not a lot new in the film, save that casino-operator Jay is the
cleanest-cut bad guy you'll ever see on screen, and that director Kevin
Bray has given the film a playfulness that's missing in most revenge
films. "You stabbed me with a potato peeler," carps one victim of mayhem
in what is unquestionably the film's oddest line. The Rock is not just a
determined stoic, but has a sense of humor about some of his dealings
with the thugs, such as when he rips a man's new pickup truck apart when
searching for drugs that turn out not to be there after all.
A big help in putting a human spin on some of the most violent
confrontations is Johnny Knoxville, as Chris' friend who has been
conscripted onto the police force, his past legal indiscretions
notwithstanding. Knoxville brings a laid-back goofiness to the film
which helps make it more than just a piece mired in anger.
**1/2
Walking Tall
Starring: The Rock, Neal McDonough.
Rated: PG-13, contains violence, profanity, drugs, adult themes.
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