Walking Tall: The Rock Is No Slouch

The Rock is a damn fine movie star.

With the effortless charm of George Clooney, the physical look of a young Ahnold and a smile that can make both the girls and the guys melt, he has a screen presence that few of the current crop of leading men can beat.

He's great with comedy, captivating in a fight and, while he'll probably never deliver an Oscar-winning performance, he's competent enough with the dramatic stuff.

In fact, he's so good that he makes a bad movie worth watching. And when you're dealing with a movie like Walking Tall, that's a pretty fortunate quality to have.

"Inspired by" 1973's take on the real-life tribulations of Sheriff Buford Pusser, the man who walks softly and carries a big stick, 2004's installment is the feeble fictionalized account of Chris Vaughn, a man who treads heavily and carries a somewhat bigger stick.

Returning to his home town after eight years with the US Army's Special Forces, Vaughn (The Rock) discovers that things aren't quite as he left them. The town's evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil playboy, Jay Hamilton (Neil McDonough), has shut down his father's noble local lumber mill and poisoned the town with sex, drugs and the corruption of minors by opening a seedy casino. Outraged by the turn of events, Vaughn takes things into his own hands and, armed with nothing but the aforementioned big stick, fights for the return of the moral, upstanding community of his youth.

Along the way, he becomes Sheriff, enlists his recovering drug addict best friend (Johnny Knoxville) in the war against drugs and attempts to rekindle a romance with his high school sweetheart.

Then he fights. A lot.

And that's pretty much it.

In fact, the plot is so slight that I've practically described it in real time. There's only so much space for awkward dialogue and clumsy exposition when you have to cram a movie full of fight scenes. It's all for the best, though, as the fights are the only moments when the movie truly works. Realistic and brutal, watching a rage-filled Rock wield a piece of wood is the perfect antidote to the overdone, ultra-stylized fighting of The Matrix and its ilk.

As the action kicks into high gear, the movie gets better and just before the hour mark, Walking Tall seems like it finally finds its way. Unfortunately, it ends only 15 minutes later. Still, it's not nearly as bad as it should be.

Much like he did with The Rundown, The Scorpion King and his feud with Hulk Hogan, The Rock rises above the middling material and makes Walking Tall far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Fans of The Rock probably won't be thrilled with the results, but at least it's something to keep us all amused while we wait for The Great One to finally find a great script.