12 Rounds

John Cena’s second cinematic outing, 12 Rounds casts the burly wrestler as Danny Fisher – a New Orleans cop who must complete a series of increasingly perilous challenges after his girlfriend (Ashley Scott’s Molly Porter) is kidnapped by a psychotic terrorist (Aidan Gillen’s Miles Jackson) bent on revenge. It’s an unapologetically tongue-in-cheek premise that’s squandered by director Renny Harlin, as the filmmaker’s consistent use of needlessly distracting visual tricks – eg the shaky camerawork is just exhausting – ultimately transforms what should’ve been a solid thriller into a hopelessly overcranked piece of work. This is despite an opening hour that’s as mindlessly watchable as one might’ve hoped, with the inclusion of several admittedly enthralling sequences – ie Danny must assist a rotund security guard out of a precariously perched elevator – initially compensating for the film’s myriad of deficiencies (Cena’s less-than-stellar performance, for one). There reaches a point, however, at which the movie can’t help but run out of steam, and while it’s impossible not to derive some enjoyment out of spotting the film’s various similarities to 1994’s Speed (eg the arc of Danny’s doomed partner is awfully similar to that of Jeff Daniels’ Harry Temple), 12 Rounds inevitably wears the viewer down with an almost relentlessly bland atmosphere that’s exacerbated by the film’s lamentable PG-13 rating (ie there are plenty of explosions and over-the-top set pieces, certainly, but instances of actual violence are virtually non-existent). The end result is a decent action movie that could’ve been a great one, although even the most competent filmmaker would’ve had problems breathing life into the movie’s seriously underwhelming climax.

** out of ****