There was a time when Dwayne Johnson was still trying to convince Hollywood that he could be more than just the enormous wrestling superstar who liked raising his eyebrow at people, and one of his earliest leading roles remains among his most entertaining. Very early in his leading man career, Johnson headed into the jungle for an adventure that combined the treasure hunting of Indiana Jones with the unlikely buddy comedy of Lethal Weapon.
That movie is The Rundown, from the prolific action director Peter Berg, which is available on Prime Video. The film follows Beck, a fixer and a remover of problems. He doesn’t exactly seek trouble, but trouble is what he needs to get rid of and there’s one final mess he’s got to get out of before he can leave it all behind. At the center of his current trouble is a wise-ass named Travis, a fast-talking double dealer whose dad has commissioned Beck to retrieve from a lingering adventure in Brazil.
Travis proves to be more of a handful than Beck expected, not only because of his mouth and his heels-dug-in reluctance to leave, but because of a couple of other complications he brings with him: Mariana, a no-nonsense local who holds the answers to some of the jungle’s hidden mysteries, and Hatcher, a Colonel Kurtz type who’s turned the jungle and its inhabitants into his own fortune-making, gold-mining empire.
The cast is led by Johnson (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) as Beck, alongside Seann William Scott (American Pie) as Travis Walker, Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka) as Mariana, Christopher Walken (Severance) as Cornelius Hatcher, Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting) as Declan and Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as Harvey.
Was The Rundown a Success?
Despite its reputation as one of Johnson’s most enjoyable early action movies, while he was still at the height of his WWE stardom, The Rundown wasn’t a particularly big theatrical success. It earned approximately $80.9 million worldwide against a reported $85 million production budget. Two things: firstly, that’s a flop, and secondly, that’s a very big budget for a relatively unproven action star at that stage of his career.
Critics and audiences were pretty much on the same page, though, as it currently has a 69% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a 66% audience score. Much of the praise focused on Johnson’s limitless well of charisma, his chemistry with Scott and the film’s entertaining action sequences.
The Rundown is available through Prime Video, with subscription or rental access depending on the viewer’s region.
