The Skinny:
The Rock plays an Army sergeant who comes back to his home town to find most businesses have shut down. The only thing keeping it alive is a casino, which is a huge source of drugs, prostitution, outbreaks of violence and crooked cops. The Rock decides to do whatever it takes to clean the town up to the great place it used to be.

The Good:
First let me say that I was 100% ready to hate this movie. I had never seen The Rock in a movie before , but I figured if Rock the actor was as good as Rock the wrestler, I was in for two hours of eyeball pain. But I was wrong. I actually really liked this movie!

The Rock is no Tom Hanks, but does a pretty darn good job playing a guy with a big heart and good values. He’s offset nicely by Johnny Knoxville, who plays his sidekick and provides some comic relief. I also liked the bad guy, played by Neal McDonough, because he was just bad enough to hate, and not bad enough to be ridiculous or unbelievable. I get sick of the typical movie bad guys who can’t help but laugh maniacally and toss out bad puns. I thought for sure this guy was gonna throw The Rock off the cliff and then dish out some lame zinger like, “Time for The Rock to get rocked! Moohoohwahwhawhawhahahaohohwoaahoahaaaa!!!!”

The story was pleasantly surprising too. In most of these kinds of films, the bad guys tick the good guy off, so the good guy gets a gun and starts dispensing of the bad guys in creatively gory ways, all without ever taking a hit from the bad guys or trouble from the cops. But this movie was a little different in that the good guy does actually takes punches and there really are consequences for his actions. And at its core, even though there’s a good share of violence, the movie has some “don’t do drugs or be a prostitute” messages in it without coming off like a public service announcement.

The Bad:
There are a few situations where you’ll have to suspend your disbelief big time, but what movie doesn’t have those moments?

The Ugly:
For some reason, I really cringed when one bad guy got stabbed with a potato peeler. Youch!

The Bottom Line:
Much better than I expected, and a pleasant, refreshing surprise compared to most movies in this genre.

Score: