DVD review: 12 Rounds

12 Rounds Extreme Cut - Available now on DVD

When international terrorist and arms dealer, Miles Jackson (Aiden Gillen), breaks out of prison he only has one thing on his mind: Take revenge on the man that put him away and inadvertently killed the “love of his life” in the process, Danny Fisher (John Cena). Jackson does exactly this by kidnapping Detective Fisher’s girlfriend and setting up 12 rounds of elaborate tasks and missions for him to complete. If Fisher can complete and survive each round, the love of his life will be returned to him safe and sound. But is Miles Jackson planning more than just a revenge plot, or is he still after the wealth he has always strived to obtain?

 

The simple answer is “yes”, followed by a resounding “who cares?”

 

In the action movie, 12 Rounds, directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Speed, The Covenant), and produced by WWE, almost everything falls absolutely flat from beginning to end. The plot is ridiculous, the characters are uninteresting, and the villain is –for lack of a better description- just a goofy, un-intimidating guy with a bad accent. Almost everything about this movie just screams bad ‘90’s action movie.

 

The plot struggles throughout the entire movie. The whole concept is based on this international terrorist wanting to get revenge on the man who was “responsible” for the death of his lover, but this aspect is weak from the very beginning. “Spoiler Alert:” (I guess…) John Cena’s character is “responsible” for Jackson’s girlfriend’s death because as he was chasing the two of them to take them into custody she runs out in front of an SUV and gets hit. Sounds like her own stupidity to me, and the fact that supposed-genius and international terrorist Miles Jackson blames Detective Fisher for this was lost on me, but it set the entire movie in motion.

 

It’s hard to believe that a man who was in prison for the last year was not only able to escape in such a short amount of time, but also plot out these elaborate, booby-trapped “rounds” for Detective Fisher to participate in all over New Orleans. But, he was able to, so we find Fisher recklessly driving all over the city in various vehicles -including a fire truck- disarming bombs, stopping trolley cars, having cheesy flashbacks about his girlfriend (flash backs all the way back to the beginning of the movie) and spouting bad one-liners. It’s one thing for an action movie to have admittedly bad one-liners in it, it’s another to have a movie full of bad one-liners about boxing (in reference to the “12 Rounds” theme) and culminate the final blow in the movie with this gem: “You lose!”

 

All around the acting was just not believable. Aiden Gillen was probably the least menacing international terrorist I have ever seen in any movie, and I couldn’t have cared less about Fisher’s kidnapped girlfriend, played by Ashley Scott. John Cena delivered pretty much every one of his lines in the exact same way, and all of his caring and worry he tried to express for his girlfriend was completely unbelievable –though, he did seem to like the little pet pug quite a bit.

 

By the end of 12 Rounds, Director Renny Harlin has just about covered all of the action movie clichés; Loyal partner gets shot in the ass? Check. Lots of high-speed chases through the city with total disregard for bystander safety? Check. Hero hanging from building ledge, moving car, and some sort of vehicle capable of flight? Check, check, and check. All of these things have already been done, and been done better in the past (i.e. Die Hard with a Vengeance) and I think that John Cena –unlike Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson- will forever be stuck making these WWE produced movies; and the WWE will never make another movie as good as The Rundown.

 

If you had any desire to check this movie out, I can confidently tell you to pass. I am usually enjoy awesomely bad action movies, but 12 Rounds was heavy in the "bad" category and light in the "awesome" category. Instead of this movie, maybe consider digging out some of your old Die Hard movies, you’ll be much more satisfied.