Twelve Rounds

The new John Cena offering leaves much to be desired. As far as an intelligent action film goes, this does not make that list in the least. Considering the most memorable part of the film was the abrupt ending that lacked closure and the usual-but-trite Hollywood coda, this does not bode well as Cena's second real attempt at acting outside the WWE arena.

New Orleans low-grade cop Danny Fisher (John Cena) and his companion cop Hank Carver (Brian J. White) accidentally arrest in an almost bumbling Chief Wiggum way an International and bizarrely Irish terrorist Miles Jackson (Aiden Gillen). In the process, Miles's moll Erica (Taylor Cole) gets run over. In Miles's peculiar reasoning, it is entirely the fault of Danny Fisher. A year later, Miles breaks out of jail and kidnaps Danny's girlfriend Molly (Ashley Scott) and sets twelve tasks or ordeals in order for Danny to get her back.

The plot itself was a mish-mash and patchy. A lot of things were left unexplained such as why on earth did the Miles consider Fisher to be the killer of his girlfriend? After all, Miles told her to run and she ran out in front of a car. It would have been understandable if it was Fisher driving the car but it was some unknown person behind blacked-out windows. So the starting blocks for the plot are riddled with holes. One task entailed Fisher to save the rather large hotel manager from annihilation via an elevator disaster. Obviously, in such situations, you do nothing and lie on the floor to reduce impact.

However, this is not fulfilled and surprise, surprise, another gratuitous death. Another task required Fisher to stop a speeding tram. What surprised me here that there were no break back-ups in such a situation. And why exactly was there a bizarre Hawaiian party at the end of the line? Also, the over-egged 'let's get his phone number and track him' sequence was clearly not timed. They stated in the script it would take 30 seconds to track him. However, the scene took over this and made the FBI seem incompetent and their technology pointless. Another point is during the epic final scene, Fisher was clearly stabbed with a scalpel but no reference to this was ever given.

The characterizations overall, were relatively one-dimensional. In order to show Fisher as a 'compassionate' person, director Renny Harlin, felt it necessary to make Fisher stare into the middle distance in the most copious and non-emotional manner as some sad piano music and montages of bad things passed over him in a pinkish hue. Such blatant tugging of heart strings may have worked with a more competent actor or if Cena tried to show some emotion. But all this achieved was it merely highlighted Cena's letdowns as an actor. It was reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to be all emotional in later films such as 'Kindergarten' and 'Junior'.

It doesn't work. The attempts at giving lesser character's 'quirks' such as Special Agent George Aiken with his little toy car seemed tacked on and more annoying than anything. The relationship between Molly and Miles was more of a letdown for humanity than anything else. Yes, he has kidnapped you and strapped bombs to you. But saying "He will win and he will kill you." marks me away from liking Molly at all. Throughout the film, the emphasis on killing Miles was over-strong. Perhaps this is just a quirk on my behalf as someone who likes Ghandi: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Maybe they've never heard of him in the New Orleans state police department.

Overall, I think it was a poor movie. A mixture of Police Academy 145: New Orleans and the Creepy So-Irish-He-Should-Be-Jigging Terrorist and Die Hard Again and Again.