Zwölf Runden

Renny Harlin has been relatively quiet these days, but I won't be shy in stating for a fact that I had enjoyed some of his action movies in the past, with the likes of Die Hard 2 (despite all the loopholes), Cliffhanger with Stallone, Driven (also starring Sly) and The Long Kiss Goodnight even. Despite being better known for duds starting with Cutthroat Island, Mindhunters and even The Covenant which turned out to be a comedy, 12 Rounds turned out to be better than expected, also because John Cena looked the classic action hero that Hollywood so sorely misses.

No, I'm not a WWE John Cena wrestling fan, because my interest in WWE was left back when it was known as WWF, and like The Rock (now wanting to be known simply as Dwayne Johnson), Cena follows in his footsteps in making that leap to the big screen. While his first outing as The Marine was pretty much straight to DVD fare, this one was designed for the big screen with its big set action pieces befittingly challenging the big man, and having an old hand of action at the helm helped to bring out some enjoyable moments despite clichés abound.

As the trailer would already have suggested, Danny Fisher (Cena) is a beat cop who gets in the way of a heist by international arms trader Miles Jackson (Aiden Gillen who was just a mile wide of being a memorable psychopathic villain), and in his pursuit causes the latter's main squeeze to die in a traffic accident. Ridden with rage, Miles remembers his pursuer so that he can exact revenge when he breaks out of prison. Only that he harbours some diabolical plot to play with his prey, hence the kidnapping of Danny's girlfriend Molly (Ashley Scott) and the devising of 12 rounds of city-wide games with the overcoming of each round leading Danny closer to his girl.

So begins a running around New Orleans to perform the usual one-man cop stunts that calls for everything from intellect to brute force. It could easily fit into the Die Hard franchise, or Speed for that matter as one sequence in a bus would have me reminisce. In shows like these, things do get a tad convenient, and though I tried to examine just a little bit more into it, the plot still made some sense and held some water. In some moments it seemed like it's paying its own tribute to the emergency services of New Orleans post-Katrina, with the police, fire and medical departments featured prominently as occupations of choice of its characters.

12 Rounds is rip-roaring fun. As an action film, it has enough thrills and spills if you'd just park aside believability for a minute, and bask in the possibility of one man saving the world only because it got personal stakes involved, coming complete with obnoxious FBI agents who think they know the world. Sprinkled with some light touches of humour, the body count here is surprisingly low, which in some way gave a breathe of fresh air instead of subscribing to the mantra that the more gruesome or gritty, the better.

But if there are qualms, it's directed more at the technical areas, like the lapsing into the shaky cam, where I had thought to roll my eyes and exclaim that Renny should have bought a bloody tripod for his DOP. Also, the editing probably needed to rethink his quick cuts in the final action sequence in closed quarters, as well as some cheesy lines where it's not warranted (I swear if I hear one more "wrong place, wrong time" comment...)

However if you go at this with expectations set low, you might just come out with a grin at the end of it. I'll be anticipating more John Cena movies to come, and will probably go dig at his older film as well, but here's hoping that he doesn't go the way that most action stars do - easy come and easy go - that he gets some longevity at the box office, before being unceremoniously pushed aside (if it does happen, like Seagal's career) to the straight to video shelves.

If you're going to watch this movie, it will be to see vehicles crash into other vehicles and cause lots of damage. This movie does that very well. It will also be for the nonstop excitement in a number of scenes, including the thrilling runaway streetcar. And the suspense of wondering if Det. Fisher can complete each challenge in time, breaking all the rules along the way. He has so many challenges and each one just leads to another one, equally impossible.

Sure, we've seen this sort of thing before, but if I enjoy the formula, so what?

But this movie isn't without problems. Aidan Gillen didn't quite reach the point of being deliciously evil, though the potential was there and he achieved what I hoped for in a few scenes.

And some of the writing was pretty bad. Cops are supposed to be smarter than this. FBI agents are supposed to be smarter too. One of the movie's final scenes had some of the most pathetic writing imaginable. But that's just the dialogue. The action in that scene was great.

I was disappointed to see Steve Harris from the critically acclaimed "Awake" in this. He didn't add much. And by the way, that's not him asleep in that streetcar. I couldn't understand what he was doing there, given the urgency of the situation.

With all the killing that takes place, the violence isn't graphic. You know people die, but you don't see the blood.

I particularly liked scenes with Danny and Molly together when not trying to stay alive. One highlight is Molly trying to repair the plumbing and I'm not talking about her mechanical skills. These scenes had some funny lines, and as terrible as certain events were, the movie's last line was really funny.

It was ... interesting.

The movie has a good idea and some really seat-gripping excitement. It reminds me of Die Hard with a Vengeance but even more exciting. The plot is good with enough twists to keep everyone's interests.

I have only one negative thing to say...and this is that I hate the type of camera work in this movie. It seems to be the latest rage in movies...to have jerky-action shots. Personally I think it looks amateurish and makes the watcher slightly nauseous. What a shame to do that to such an exciting film.

Even with that type of photography, I would still recommend this film and have done so. I had never seen any advertising for this film and would not have gone to see it had I not looked up a synopsis of it.

In recent years, there really hasn't been many truly great action flicks to warrant fans of the genre to go to the theaters. Sure, there has been a few entries in classic action series like Rambo and Indiana Jones hat met with varied success, but not much in the line of fresh new flicks has been produced (Except the awesome Crank). Thus we come to a film that really garnered next to no hype and slipped quietly into theaters, 12 Rounds. Is it the movie action fans have been yearning for? Danny Fisher, played by WWE superstar John Cena, is a New Orleans detective faced with a problem: an old terrorist named Miles he arrested a year back has broken out of jail and has taken Fisher's girl. Now the only way to get her back is to complete 12 rounds of a "game" that Miles created to finally get revenge on the cop that ruined his life. It's an unlikely scenario to be sure, but hey, this is an action flick, so it's just preposterous enough to make for an interesting plot. The thing I don't understand though is the fact that in the trailer for 12 Rounds, it is said to be directed by the same director who did Die Hard 2, and produced by the Speed producer. Why is this odd? Well, it is obvious right from the start that 12 Rounds is a blatant rip-off of Speed right down to some scenes being near carbon-copies. Well, at least they ripped off the cream of the action genre crop I guess.

One of the major compliments I feel I have to give to the filmmakers comes in that no noticeable CGI was used anywhere in the movie. CGI has been overused way too much as of late, so to see an action movie with good ol' fashioned stunts and explosions is great. What's better than no CGI is how all the action is done incredibly well. Between great car chases, huge explosions, and nicely choreographed fights, it's a feast for the eyes. Of course, all this awesomeness couldn't just stay awesome thanks heavily to the awful camera-work. Similar to Quantum of Solace's quick cuts and shaky camera during action sequences, 12 Rounds makes it difficult at times to tell what the hell is going on. I don't see what is wrong with traditional camera-work where viewers can actually enjoy the high-quality special effects since they can be seen in all their glory, but I digress.

Honestly, there really isn't much to say about this one. If you are an action fan that has already seen every Stallone and Schwarzenegger movie under the sun, then 12 Rounds is sure to entertain on a rainy afternoon. Granted, it doesn't bring much to the table in terms of new concepts or anything like that, but it's entertaining, and that all that really matters, right? Again, it's a complete and utter rip-off of Speed, but it's a damn fine rip-off, and I would be willing to call this Speed 2 more than that pathetic piece of crap film with the cruise ship. After jumping to conclusions when I saw John Cena as the star and it being a WWE Production, I was genuinely surprised by the entertainment value found within, and I think that if viewers go in with the right mindset, they too will have a great time.

If you can just avoid asking "how?" you might enjoy this film as an exciting collection of action scenes. The villain does bad things, and the hero John Cena manages to save the day (as expected). Reality and logic are overlooked when they are in conflict with a good action scene. The fact that the action in this film could never, never ever happen is beside the point.

Very little time is spent on character development, since all you need to know is who the villain is. You find this out within a minute or two, and you can then switch off your brain for the rest of the film.

This film is immune to criticism. John Cena does not have any big acting scenes, and might even be capable of passable acting. However, he's not called upon to do much acting. His execution of the stunts and action scenes is amazing.

How can anyone complain about an illogical plot when the film was produced by the WWE and stars a professional wrestler? The movie was filmed entirely in New Orleans,and makes terrific use of dozens of locations. I probably gave it an extra point or two for this.

The scene with the "runaway streetcar" has got to be an in-joke, because the "real" Canal Street streetcar cannot travel more than a half-block at a time at a very, very slow pace. It is frequently blocked by vehicles stopped across its tracks. The havoc (if not revenge) wreaked on vehicular traffic by this runaway streetcar has got to bring delight to any local streetcar rider.