Search
What's Hot
Day-by-Day Fall Schedule
Your Dancing All-Stars Picks
Mary-Kate Olsen's New Beau
Shows We Lost This Year

Walking Tall

2004, Movie, PG-13, 85 mins

Walking Tall: Review

starstarstarstar
Retooled to suit the strengths of WWE wrestling star The Rock, this loose remake of the 1973 exploitation crowd-pleaser, based on the real-life exploits of Tennessee sheriff Buford Hayse Pusser (who himself wrestled professionally as "Buford the Bull"), celebrates benevolent vigilantism. After eight years in the military, Chris Vaughn (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ) finds his Washington-state hometown sadly changed. The Hamilton lumber mill where his father (John Beasley) once worked is shuttered, and rich boy Jay Hamilton Jr. (Neil McDonough) has opened a gambling joint-strip club called Wild Cherry in its stead. The casino's honky-tonk atmosphere has settled over the downtown streets, where hollow-eyed junkies score in front of shuttered storefronts and rowdy gangs congregate on street corners; Vaughn's own adolescent nephew (Khleo Thomas) is drifting into petty hell-raising and drug use. Jay magnanimously invites Vaughn up to the casino for a "welcome home" night on the town but Vaughn, still recovering from the sight of his old girlfriend (Ashley Scott) stripping in a peep-show booth, accuses a craps dealer of using loaded dice. In the ensuing brawl, Vaughn is beaten and left for dead by casino goons; when he recovers the police refuse to investigate. The last straw is Vaughn's discovery that casino employees are peddling crystal meth to local youngsters: He picks up a two-by-four and smashes up the joint, which only lands him in court. But the law-abiding citizens of Kitsap County have had enough, and Vaughn's promise that, if acquitted, he'll run for sheriff and make some changes galvanizes them. Sheriff Vaughn is as good as his word, firing the old deputies, hiring his loyal pal Ray (Johnny Knoxville) and taking aim at the riffraff. If The Rock weren't such a fundamentally genial screen presence, this short, stripped-down revenge drama might leave a sour aftertaste. But his cheerful, muscular decency takes the edge off the skull-cracking — he's thoroughly, if cartoonishly, plausible as someone who'd rather torture a customized truck to death than lay a hand on another human being. Although inspired by actual events, the film proceeds along formulaic wish-fulfillment lines, its dynamics unaltered by the casting of a mixed-race actor in what was originally a redneck role; it's a sign of some sort of social progress that justified ass-kicking trumps race. And despite being set in the present day, the film's funky soundtrack — heavy on tracks by Dr. John, the Allman Brothers and the Ohio Players — evokes the story's '70s origins. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
Are You Watching?
Walking Tall
Loading ...
Advertisement

Our Partners

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. American Idol
  2. NCIS
  3. Big Bang Theory
  4. Voice
  5. Person of Interest
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Jessica Simpson
  2. Khloe Kardashian
  3. Kate Middleton
  4. Maria Menounos
  5. Kim Kardashian
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. Men In Black 3
  2. Avengers
  3. Battleship
  4. The Dictator
  5. Dark Shadows
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Celebrity
  2. Celebrity
  3. The Bachelorette
  4. America's Got Talent
  5. Revenge
more top videos