12 Rounds

12 ROUNDS (2009) - Apr. 7, 2009
A surprisingly boring film about a criminal who breaks out of jail and almost immediately sets out to get revenge on the cop who killed his girlfriend, by forcing him to embark on an increasingly elaborate set of tasks. The most disappointing thing about this film is Renny Harlin's shoddy direction -- is this really the same man who brought us classics like Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger? The visuals are quite shaky, and worse -- they're bland. There is a ridiculous amount of action in this film (I don't think there's more than a minute or two of downtime between the big action set-pieces), but it's just not compelling. It's dull. The performances don't fare much better; Miles Jackson, in particular, is absolutely awful, and makes for a completely ineffectual villain. John Cena does the best he can with the material, but even Arnie himself would have a hard time saving this film. *1/2