12 Rounds [DVD]

'12 Rounds' stars wrestler John Cena as a New Orleans cop named Danny Fisher who captures international terrorist and weapons dealer, Miles Jackson, but Jackson's girlfriend is accidentally killed in the pursuit. One year later, Fisher is now a detective living a perfect life with his wife Molly and their dog but on the anniversary of the arrest, Jackson escapes from prison and wants revenge on Fisher for the death of the love of his life by kidnapping his wife. Fisher must then go through 12 gruelling rounds doing anything that Jackson asks in order to get his wife back.

I've been looking forward to seeing this for a while as it looked great from the trailers, it is directed by Renny Harlin who is the director of Die Hard 2 and the producer of Speed and I also really enjoyed The Condemned last year which is also an action film from WWE Studios. And now after seeing this film I can happily say that this film is awesome. It has lightning-quick action and excitement from the opening minutes, going from the capture of Jackson for the first 20 minutes or so to then when he has escaped and Fisher going through the tasks to save his wife. The story sounded fairly basic and unoriginal from any reviews I'd read about it but I was surprised by the amount of clever plot twists there were throughout the movie. The ending in particular had a very cool twist that I never saw coming. There are a lot of similarities to films like Speed and Die Hard With A Vengeance, but is equally as good. Acting from Cena is surprisingly good, playing the hard-as-nails yet gentle giant cop, and I think, given the right roles, he could be an excellent Hollywood action hero in the future. The special effect were pretty impressive too, especially the scene with the street car which looked very realist and the helicopter scene.

Overall this is one of the best action films I've seen in a while and is one I highly recommend to anyone after 100 minutes of adrenaline-fuelled, over the top, non-stop action.

If you shuffled together the scripts for Speed and Die Hard 3, and split it in two you'd have Daniel Kunka's script for 12 Rounds. The similarities are striking, and too numerous to list. But as a crash-and-burn action film it is very entertaining, has many exiting scenes, and features a charismatic villain. Unfortunately, John Cena, as the troubled hero, is about as emotive as a draft excluder (one of those long, stuffed snakes...remember those?). Cena is likeable, but he's very, very, very far from being an accomplished actor.

One year after busting an international terrorist, New Orleans cop Danny Fisher is thrown into an impossible gauntlet when the criminal breaks out of jail. He must survive twelve rounds of increasingly difficult challenges in order to save his kidnapped girlfriend. The crook himself is Miles Jackson (played nicely by Aidan Gillen), a criminal mastermind who plays the deadly game fast and loose. As I said, he's a great villain, and one that you might partially side with after the accidental death of his girlfriend during the opening.

Renny Harlin has been slumming it for a while now. Ever since Cutthroat Island tanked he's had a hard time keeping his career afloat. When one watches all of his movies from different eras it becomes clear that the man has no style of his own and simply emulates whatever the current trend happens to be. His effort in 12 rounds is merely a pastiche of all the usual CSI/Michael Bay moves. The camera never sits still, regardless of whether or not it's appropriate to the scene. Trevor Rabin provides a rather generic score, but has a couple of nice, repeating themes that bring more emotion to the scenes than Cena is able to show.

12 Rounds will never win awards or even earn itself any particular distinction among action movies, but when you're having this much fun, who cares?

The Blu Ray looks absolutely stunning in 2.35:1 1080p with DTS HD-MA sound. There are a fair amount of extras too.

I am a HUGE fan of all things John Cena, whether it be is wrestling techniques, his music or his acting abilities, which could be better improved here, anyway i was amazed to come across this movie as i had no idea it existed! having seen his debut in "The Marine", and the fact that it was directed by Renny "Die Hard 2" Harlin i snapped it up.
If it's big bangs and exposive action sequences you're after then you can do no wrong with this, and if you can overcome John's weak acting abilities then you'll enjoy this. It kind of reminded me of Die Hard 3 but, in my opinion it is much better than that. There are some amazing stunt sequences and having seen the short docs follwing the film it's easy to see why John preferred to do all his own stunts, and it shows. It's no masterpiece but it is a blast from start to finish.