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The Rock Stars: Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris Director: Michael Bay BBFC Certificate: 15 Opened: July 1996 |
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Fresh from the highly successful Bad Boys, director Michael Bay once again helms an actioner with a hefty slice of intelligence required to follow it's intricate plot and multi-dimensional characters. Exchanging sunny Miami for a decidedly damp San Francisco, Bay's incisive set-piece direction and clever handling of some unprecedentedly non-cliched dialogue, creates a whimsical fairy tale of a movie, but with a distinctly human edge.
Ed Harris, whose career, following the underrated Abyss, recently 'took off' [groan] with Ron Howard's Apollo 13, swaps the comfortable reality-based shoes of Houston flight director Gene Kranz for an altogether darker role as a decorated US army general who takes over Alcatraz and holds San Francisco ransom with a lot of bath salts (a.k.a. lethal chemical weapons) in an attempt to restore the good name of several soldiers who died in covert US military operations, and who did not receive a proper burial, or the respect they deserved. The FBI call in the services of 'chemical superfreak' Nicholas Cage to deal with the bath salts, and English spy (deja vu?) Sean Connery, who was a 'guest' at the prison for nearly 30 years. On entering the island, Connery and Cage's backup (several dozen U.S. Navy Seals) are quickly wiped out by Harris' men and the two are left alone to run, jump, swim and shoot their way around the island in an effort to save the good people of San Francisco. Though the plot may seem a little one dimensional it is fleshed out more than adequately by some interesting sub-plots (Connery was jailed for stealing secret US government files on such subjects as the Roswell incident and the assassination of J.F.K., which Cage later recovers), and some unusually profound characterisation. Harris' character is not the usual despotic psycho of such action fare, instead he is a good man driven to beyond the edge by a desire to do what he thinks is the best for the men who served under him. Cage, too plays a character whose naiveté in the face of conflict contrasts beautifully with Connery's assured, almost Bond-esque, performance. The film benefits enormously by not taking itself to seriously. One can't go so far as too call it a spoof, but it certainly has an element of tongue-in-cheek self appraisal that far too many modern implausible action films sadly lack. The movie's score is truly magnificent and keeps the adrenaline pumping throughout. The screenplay, though not Shakespearean, is more cerebral and in places funny than all but a few action flicks. By far the best of the summer's blockbusters, The Rock delivers what Mission: Impossible and Independence Day failed to. Reviewed by: Tom Green
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