Everything Action Theater: Walking Tall

Dwayne Johnson is currently changing the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe but back in 2004, he was cleaning up his hometown with a piece of lumber in 2004’s Walking Tall.  A loose remake of the Joe Don Baker cult classic, The Rock stars as Chris Vaughn, a recently discharged special forces vet who finds his small town home corrupted by a casino and its owner, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough), who also shut down the local cedar mill and bribes the local sheriff to look the other way for various illegal activities.  After Chris is assaulted by Hamilton’s goons when he goes on a rampage at the casino to get justice for his nephew almost dying from crystal meth he bought from the casino’s security, Chris is elected the new sheriff after a big courtroom speech and tries to clean up the town with his best friend Ray (Johnny Knoxville).  Coming off The Rundown, easily one of The Rock’s best movies, Walking Tall was a bit of a disappointment. However, it’s still a solid Rock action movie and McDonough devours scenery wonderfully as he always does when he’s the villain.  The film made $57 million worldwide and got two direct-to-video sequels, weirdly enough starring Kevin Sorbo, which is in line with the Joe Don Baker original, which got a ton of random sequels, a TV movie, and even a short-lived TV series.  You can watch Walking Tall below thanks to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aJtVURvXcM