April 1- 7, 2004

movies

Thwock and Awe

Solid as a rock: The Rock prepares to hit someone.

Walking Tall is as sharp as The Rock's four-by-four.

by Cindy Fuchs

After eight years with the U.S. Special Forces, Sgt. Chris Vaughn (The Rock) has fond memories of his old home in Washington state. He especially misses the smell of cedar chips at the mill where his dad used to work. But when Chris returns, bad news awaits him.

The town has changed. As Chris walks from the ferry to his parents' house, he passes signs of trouble: stores advertise porn and liquor, a mother has left her infant on the sidewalk while she scores drugs in an alley, the mill is closed. He frowns. Sheriff Watkins (Michael Bowen) happens by, just in time to explain, "It's simple economics." The hardware store couldn't compete with Home Depot, and the mill couldn't compete with the casino.

So far, so like the 1973 version of Walking Tall. Like the first movie, this one is "inspired by the true story" of Buford Pusser, the righteous underdog who straightened out his corrupted Tennessee town by swinging a big stick. Unlike the first film, this one is set in the Northwest and produced by Vince McMahon. It's also considerably streamlined with regard to motivation and action. The first time, Buford (Joe Don Baker) was married with children, had a beat-up red pickup and a black best friend (Felton Perry). In 1973, Buford's father (Noah Beery Jr.) referred to this friend as a "pickaninny;" this time, the fact that Chris' father (John Beasley) is black and his mother (Barbara Tarbuck) white is a non-issue.

That said, wifeless Chris needs solid, extremely personal reasons to pick up that celebrated four-by-four. And so he has a family to defend: his sister Michelle (Kristen Wilson) lives with their parents with her son, Pete (Khleo Thomas), who's just rebellious enough to need schooling by a father figure. Chris looks the part, too, shot from low angles so he's imposing, but charming too, in the way that The Rock can't seem to help but be. "Did you ever kill anyone?" asks Pete. Chris just looks at him. And that's enough.

Chris has a couple of other convenient connections in town. His childhood friend Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), owns the casino (courtesy of his one-sixteenth Apache background). Also conveniently, Chris's ex-love interest is currently available. It helps, too, that Deni (Ashley Scott) works as a peep-show pole dancer at the casino, incarnating still another sign the town needs a serious cleansing. The moral imperative becomes clear when a fight erupts at the casino, leading to Chris' severe beating by Jay's surly thugs, an ordeal that ends when the chief batterer carves up his chest with a box cutter and leaves him to die by the highway.

This assault -- followed by the discovery that the casino dealers are selling crystal meth to Pete and his friends -- grants Chris all the righteous underdog status he needs. Such is the logic of the vigilante film: The hero, no matter how large his gun, his chest or his stick, must be utterly victimized before he can launch into justified aggression. In this case, he essentially kills the casino, whacking at the slot machines, poker tables and mirrors (not to mention one goon's arm, loudly) with his stick, a demonstration that lands him in court. Just when he's about to lose his case, he fires his lawyer and rips open his shirt to reveal his ferocious box cutter scars.

With that, the jury acquits, the town elects him sheriff, and Chris appoints his best friend and recovering addict Ray (Johnny Knoxville) as his new deputy. The action that follows is brutal and swift, comprised of the expected shootouts, explosions, speeding trucks and, in the inevitable domestic invasion -- the villains attack Chris' family -- a fight where the weapons include a potato peeler and fry pan.

So streamlined, reactionary and reductive is this plot that once Chris recovers from his wounds, he spends little time between encounters and emerges essentially unscathed (save for that first, admittedly awful, attack). True, he does lose his great big truck, but this version of Walking Tall offers no context and no particular lessons learned, except that big sticks work. In 1973, Buford Pusser's wretched suffering, amid the townspeople's belated decision to take action, closes the film. In 2004, Chris rides high, with best friend, girlfriend and family intact, his enemies vanquished.

These differences in expectations and demeanors speak to their eras, and especially to their wars. Where Buford, bedraggled, disillusioned and occasionally weak, survived the Vietnam War and battled full-on racism at home, Chris returns from unnamed engagements, presumably in the Middle East, perhaps elsewhere, where racism is mostly unspoken, where enemies and friends shift sides, where authority is by definition suspect, and super-sized individualism is the ideal. His is a most cynical moment, when the show is all that matters.

Walking Tall

Directed by Kevin Bray An MGM release Opens Friday at area theaters