Walking Tall Review

Walking Tall
Ol’ Stony plays Chris Vaughan, a Special Forces veteran who returns home to find that his peaceful town has been transformed. His family lumber mill has gone out of business and a casino opened in its place, and drugs and crime have flourished. Vaughan is

by William Thomas |
Published on
Release Date:

09 Jul 2004

Running Time:

87 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Walking Tall

After a stint serving in the US Special Forces, Chris Vaughn (The Rock) returns to his idyllic home town to discover things are no longer as he remembers them. The small community has become downtrodden and tarnished by the emergence of a casino, drug dealing and corrupt officials. With nothing more than his lethal combat training, a big stick and an anger management problem, The Rock wages a one-man mission to clean up the town.

A pumped-up remake of the grittier 1973 original, this wannabe Western is sadly far too slick to cut deep. The Rock, though, does put in a decent enough performance (as does sidekick Johnny Knoxville), but if the former WWE wrestler has ambitions to out-muscle the likes of Vin Diesel to become Hollywood’s next true action hero, then he needs a much more effective showcase than this.

Walking Tall could do for the Rock what Rambo did for Stallone and Knoxville is on hand for some comic relief. Or it could be a bog-standard actioner. We're hoping it will be the former.
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