Month: March 2009

Movie: 12 Rounds

I admit that I wouldn’t have seen this movie without encouragement from others: this might also be your stance, but if you’re a fan of the old action that have inspired it (it’s mostly a cross between Die Hard 3, and Speed), then I’d consider giving this a look.

The charm of this particular movie is its script. The script is riddled with cliches that are delivered as seriously as the actors can muster them. Director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliff Hanger, Deep Blue Sea) keeps the initial setup going until even those in the cheap seats have worked it out. He’s a detective, they’re the FBI agents, the bad guy is ruthless (we have this in dialogue, and then he shows us too, just for good measure)

While the setup is a bit slow, and completely preposterous (one key action set piece here has the hero on foot, cutting through peoples’ homes a la the Matrix or Point Break, pursuing the bad guy who is in a speeding car), it gives just the right tone for what is to come.

When we get to the “12 Rounds” of the title – not, as you might think, referring to bullets, but really counting off the other action set pieces in the film – we’re left with a series of race-against-the-clock action sequences interspersed by cheesy attempts to show the characters interacting in a dramatic fashion.

This film felt like a family action film, and a combination of all that is great about fuzzy popcorn movies. It’s fairly light on swearing (trimmed down for a PG-13 rating in the states), there’s not too much on-screen bloodshed for a film of its genre, with many characters dying off-screen, and while a few characters talk of the number of women they’ve bedded, it’s left to the dialogue, rather than the screen to show this.

If you’re looking for an escapist film for a Friday night that you won’t have to think about too much, then this delivers admirably.