Mindless fun in Walking Tall

Walking Tall is the very essence of Guy Cinema. With no plot, no acting and no character development, this sparse, rehashed testosterone-fest has nothing to offer besides The Rock smashing every living and inanimate object to appear on screen.

Which is just perfect, if that's the kind of movie you're looking for. Walking Tall, a remake of an earlier movie by the same title, centers around the heroic exploits of Chris Vaughn (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who has just returned to his hometown after eight years in the military. The movie never discloses why Vaughn was discharged from army special forces, although by the looks of his physique, steroids are a strong possibility.

Vaughn quickly meets up with his old friends, including his best buddy Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville) and an implied childhood rival, the sinister albino Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough). However, Vaughn's homecoming isn't as placid as he hoped, and he discovers that a lot can change in eight years – Ray-Ray became a drug addict for a few years while Hamilton opened a casino where the townspeople blow their savings on cheap hookers and drugs, laid off his dad, and closed down Vaughn's favorite lumber mill.

None of this seems to do anything more than make Vaughn a little wistful, until he discovers that the casino's dice are weighted. Can you smell the vigilante justice The Rock is cooking? Vaughn goes on a rampage through the casino using his special forces training, until the evil security guards cut him into ribbons. Then he finds out that the casino is also selling drugs to his nephew (Khleo Thomas, the most annoying ten-year old drug user ever on screen) and Hamilton is blatantly bribing the sheriff. So he does what any normal vigilante would do – rips the casino apart again, beats the assault charges, becomes the town sheriff, fires all the deputies, hires Ray-Ray, and goes to set things right himself.

And that's about all there is for plot. The entire movie, excluding three or four dialogue scenes, is The Rock busting people and things up with a two-by-four. The main point of this film is clearly to watch him destroy as many types of objects as possible, and boy, does it deliver.

The Rock might not be the most talented actor in Hollywood, but he has clearly matured somewhat since his days delivering "The People's Elbow" on WWE Wrestling. Walking Tall completely rides on his capable portrayal of a pumped-up action hero dispensing justice and revenge by any means necessary. Johnny Knoxville also provides some welcome comic relief, performing a few stunts that could have come straight from Jackass. The rest of the acting ranges from awful to mediocre.

There really isn't much more to be said about Walking Tall. The movie is short, implausible (although it claims to be 'inspired by a true story,' this must be the loosest interpretation ever), violent and full of action movie clichés. The only Oscar it will be nominated for is "Most Objects Smashed with Lumber." But Walking Tall has one important fact working in its favor – it's a fun, uncomplicated good guy-bad guy movie. People who enjoy action movies and can put their brains in low gear for a little less than 90 minutes (yes, it's very short) should have a great time at this movie.

Walking Tall is rated PG-13 for language and violence.