12 Rounds (DVD)

New Orleans policeman Danny Fisher intercepts super-smart villain Miles Jackson during a million dollar heist and Jackson’s girlfriend is accidentally killed. A year later Fisher and his partner have been promoted to detectives and Jackson has escaped from prison. The bad guy then snatches Fisher’s fiancée and holds her to ransom. He sets the detective twelve deadly tasks around the city. If he successfully completes them all then he can have his ...
...fair…

You know exactly what to expect from a Renny Harlin film; lots of brainless, balls-to-the-wall action and big explosions. And that’s exactly what you get from this bargain basement action movie which has no interest in telling a story or developing the characters to a point where you can actually care for them. There’s virtually no preamble before Fisher and his partner are thrown headlong into a prolonged chase through the streets ... more

New Orleans policeman Danny Fisher intercepts super-smart villain Miles Jackson during a million dollar heist and Jackson’s girlfriend is accidentally killed. A year later Fisher and his partner have been promoted to detectives and Jackson has escaped from prison. The bad guy then snatches Fisher’s fiancée and holds her to ransom. He sets the detective twelve deadly tasks around the city. If he successfully completes them all then he can have his beloved back. But the criminal mastermind isn’t planning on playing fair…

You know exactly what to expect from a Renny Harlin film; lots of brainless, balls-to-the-wall action and big explosions. And that’s exactly what you get from this bargain basement action movie which has no interest in telling a story or developing the characters to a point where you can actually care for them. There’s virtually no preamble before Fisher and his partner are thrown headlong into a prolonged chase through the streets of New Orleans. Then it’s set-piece after set-piece threaded together by the flimsiest of plots.

Harlin tries to be inventive by kicking off with lots of grainy surveillance footage complete with onscreen grids and viewfinders as FBI agents track the villain through the streets. He uses hand-held cameras with rough pans and zooms to try to inject some excitement into some sequences. He frantically cross-cuts between possible victims and the hero during every task in an attempt to create tension. Then of course there are the multi-angle slow-motion explosions, which are the real stars of the show. However, there’s no semblance of suspense because the plotting is so predictable and the hero appears virtually indestructible. So you’re never under any illusion about the outcome. Harlin’s attempts at character development are pitiful, comprising a handful of saccharine flashes of Danny’s relationship with his fiancée Molly. They don’t make you feel for the characters, they just make you look at your watch and wonder when the next explosion will be. Admittedly with little plot to get in the way, the pacing is swift and the hundred-and-eight minute running-time flies by.

You can tell the whole project has been shot on a shoestring. The film-stock is grimy, the lighting is muddy and the locations anonymous. Colours flare and the lighting states change from shot to shot, so the whole endeavour looks cheap and the overriding impression is that you’re watching a straight-to-video action flick from the 1980s. The wooden acting doesn’t help on that score, with the director allowing his ‘star’ to get away with hitting his marks and saying his lines with no hint of emotion. The overall impression is of a terribly unoriginal movie that will only appeal if you’re after something that won’t require you to use any brainpower. That being said, there is some decent stunt-work, including high speed car chases and high fall work.

The screenplay by debut writer Daniel Kunka feels like a real back-of-a-beer-mat idea; the most basic race against time story played out several times with bigger explosions on every occasion. The vengeance subplot is so badly under-written that it’s easy to see the twist in the tale from miles away. Any whiff of plot is merely a way of marking time until the next action sequence. The puzzles and tasks are far too easy to solve so there’s no real mystery. Because what the story is really about is blowing up as many things as possible in as short a period as possible.

The characterisation is pitiful; Danny Fisher is supposed to be the average cop on the beat whose arrest of a criminal mastermind elevates his status. But for an everyman, he’s rather too handy in all those life-or-death situations and we never get a strong enough sense of his relationship with Molly to believe that he would really die for her. His fiancée is a standard damsel in distress with no distinct personality. His partner is the usual wisecracking loyal friend. Miles Jackson is a generic villain whose penchant for game-playing is a rather lame character trait. The FBI agents assigned to the case are the stock hard-nut with a personal vendetta against the criminal and his more sympathetic co-worker. But there’s a sense that there isn’t an iota of originality about any of them. The dialogue is the usual action movie fodder; lots of threats of the “If anything happens to her…” variety and accompanying taunts from the bad guy.

Wrestler John Cena looks like a beefier version of Matt Damon and acts about as well as the puppet Damon from “Team America”. He’s a square-jawed action man with a po-faced default expression that never changes. He throws himself into the action with gusto. But there’s no suggestion of anything going on from the neck up. Aidan Gillen clearly relishes playing the bad guy as Miles Jackson, but not matter how he attacks the role, the writing simply isn’t strong enough to make him more than a generic villain. Sure he’s vicious and mercenary, but he doesn’t have anything that marks him out as a memorable baddie. And he tends to come across as cocky rather than menacing.

Ashley Scott is a cutesy, doe-eyed damsel in distress as Molly. Though winsome, there’s nothing to the part for her to get her teeth into so she feels more like a plot device than a character. Brian J White is similarly short-changed by the script that has nothing for him to do as Danny’s partner Hank, other than follow him around and hit on women. Steve Harris focuses too much on FBI agent Aiken’s ambitions and not enough on making him human. So he appears to be nothing other than a bundle of tics. Gonzalo Menendez makes the most of a bad lot as Aiken’s partner Ray Santiago, managing to be a more engaging sidekick for Cena than his actual partner.

The original music by Trevor Rabin adds to the 80s’ action bonanza feeling with plenty of chugging synthesizers, synth strings and rising brass. Chase sequences are accompanied by electric guitars and pounding percussion. Miles Jackson warrants his own arrangements of tense strings and percussion and thoughts of Molly are underlined by syrupy Spanish guitar. Unfortunately, in line with the rest of the movie, the composer goes for the bigger, louder, more approach, smothering almost every second of the production in cheap music that loses its impact because of its ubiquity.

“12 Rounds” is a very silly action movie that has very little plot and no originality. The direction is brash and hackneyed, the writing anaemic and the performances hinge on a wooden central turn from a wrestler. However it has no pretensions and doesn’t pretend it’s big or clever. So if you’re a fan of 1980s action movies then you’ll probably get a kick out of it. And despite its many shortcomings, it is fun in a brainless way. It’s the kind of thing that will find its natural home on television, where you’ll chuckle along at the silliness of it before forgetting it completely in time for bed. 

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