12 Rounds

There should be a lot of reasons to dislike 12 Rounds, or at the very least to be suspicious of it sight unseen. It's directed by Renny Harlin, the man whose string of action successes was painfully derailed by Cutthroat Island. It stars John Cena, whose acting resume primarily springs from his work in the squared circle of the professional wrestling ring. The plot, as a diabolical criminal (Aiden Gillen) sets Cena's cop a series of tasks he must accomplish or face dire consequences, is a plain-and-simple rip off of Die Hard with a Vengeance. The film is backed by World Wrestling Entertainment's movie division, who've previously given us action-stinkers like The Condemned and The Marine.

Yet, as the saying goes, no one in Hollywood knows anything. As 12 Rounds unfolds, it's surprisingly satisfactory and enjoyable. There are a few big reasons for that, and a few small ones, but the fact is that, for a B-movie action film, 12 Rounds goes the distance. To continue the boxing metaphor, it's what my dad would have called a 'ham-and-egger' -- the kind of fighter who doesn't make it with flashy knockouts but through skill and will and battered persistence.

And part of what makes it satisfying is Cena -- or, rather, how Cena's character, New Orleans cop Danny Fisher, is written. At the start of the film, Danny and his partner get lucky and arrest international arms dealer Miles Jackson (Gillen), even though Jackson's girl dies in the bust. A year later, Danny and his partner Hank (Bryan White) are detectives … and Danny still feels bad about what happened, wondering if he and Hank really deserve what they have. The movie moves past this moment of self-aware self-doubt pretty fast, but it's always there -- and while I don't think I'd want to watch Cena play, say, Hamlet (and I don't think Cena would want to play Hamlet, either), the attempt to add a touch of shading and complexity to a brown-bag action film actually makes it better. And Cena can speak a line and throw a punch, and his acting has improved since The Marine; it'd be easy to say that for a wrestler, he does okay, but the fact is that while he's not as much of a natural as, say, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, he's far better than Steve "Stone Cold" Austin.

And Gillen is another plus in 12 Rounds' corner. His clever-chap arms dealer Jackson is a ratty, over-caffeinated rogue -- but you buy him, and you buy him as a threat to Cena's Fisher and his friends. Gillen, last seen as Baltimore mayor Tommy Carcetti on The Wire, sinks his teeth into the role and gnaws at it like a terrier with a toy, playing brain to Cena's brawn. Yes, the tasks Gillen sets for Cena are part of a broader plot, as in Die Hard with a Vengeance -- but 12 Rounds actually raises the stakes on that film by having the series of tasks be more than just window dressing distraction, and I'll stop before I say more. Screenwriter Daniel Kunka didn't exactly re-invent the wheel with his work here -- he instead seems to have recreated the low-budget, high-testosterone era of '80s action flicks -- but he puts a little polish on the rims, and now and then that's all you can hope for.

12 Rounds isn't going to be on anyone's Top Ten list for the year (well, maybe John Cena's), and it's both simplistically derivative and diabolically over-complex -- but for all of the reasons above, and a few more, I liked it. The DVD presents an unrated cut of the film, as well as commentary from both Harlin and Cena, along with alternate endings and a gag reel; the feature set is actually way more lavish than you'd expect for a film with such relatively modest provenance. 12 Rounds never stops slugging, and by the end it hasn't fallen down; good enough for a win in my book.

Comments

[Vital1]

i was actually quite surprised with this movie, it was entertaining and exciting to watch..wwe studios are finally hitting thier stride with this one. Cena did a decent job of acting albiet not great, but c'mon the man is wrassler after all. The story was pretty good, i especially liked the moral confliction within cena's character. The guilt vs. the rage for the villian. i felt that made the movie deeper that it could've been and all the more watchable and enjoyable, definately recommend checkin it out for the actioner fan.

[Ray Watson]

Kind of okay.