A Rock and a hard place

Film critics like to complain that Hollywood has run out of ideas. It seems that most movies these days are either sequels, remakes, or adapted from some other medium. That’s a little shortsighted, when you consider that filmmakers have been updating scripts and plots since the dawn of the silver screen. The problem lies in how persistently lackluster so many of these modern remakes and adaptations have been.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that someone in Hollywood thought it would be a grand idea to revisit the 1973 “hixploitation” classic “Walking Tall,” starring Joe Don Baker as the club-wielding southern sheriff Buford Pusser. Like most recent remakes, the new “Walking Tall” bears only a skeletal similarity to the original. And like most recent Hollywood remakes, it can’t be fairly compared to its predecessor.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Chris Vaughn, an Army Special Forces veteran who returns to his sleepy hometown of Ferguson, Wash. (somewhere in rural Kitsap County) to find it isn’t so sleepy anymore. The cedar mill, the town’s major employer, has been closed down by the son of the original owner, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough). In its place Hamilton has built the town’s new source of economic prosperity, the Wild Cherry casino. But gambling isn’t the only vice employed there. As Vaughn soon learns, drugs and thuggery are what keep the residents of this small town in check.

At first Hamilton and Vaughn, once high school rivals, have a civil understanding, until Vaughn exposes a fixed craps game at the casino. A brutal beating at the hands of Hamilton’s security force, and the sheriff’s subsequent refusal to arrest the offenders, arouses Vaughn’s outrage at the criminal enterprise that has consumed his once peaceful town. Vaughn picks up a 2 x 4 and begins cleaning house, eventually getting himself elected sheriff. His hard line approach to law enforcement earns the retaliation of Hamilton and his minions, who set out to put Vaughn in his place by threatening his life and the lives of his family and friends.

At a scant hour and 15 minutes, “Walking Tall” gets to the point of the story pretty quickly. Like its predecessor, it’s not supposed to require any profound philosophical contemplation; yet something seems to be missing from this version. The original “Walking Tall” is a cult classic because it is so thoroughly consumed by its southernness. The villains that Chris Vaughn confronts are nasty, but Buford Pusser’s were absolutely vile. The audience can empathize with Vaughn’s anger, but Pusser’s vengeance and the vigilante justice he doles out comes from a much darker place.

Still, this “Walking Tall” has its moments. The Rock and Johnny Knoxville make an unconventional action duo, whose chemistry makes for some entertaining scenes. There’s some decent cinematography that takes advantage of the remote location of “Ferguson” (actually rural British Columbia). Washington residents may even find some amusement in the prominent use of Kitsap County sheriff vehicles throughout the film. Considering the film as a separate entity from the original is likely to make it a more enjoyable experience.