By the time Ambrose was cast in 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown, such a role had the appeal of a worn out sweater handed down among a rather large family. That sort of worked out well here, since he has the acting ability of a hand-me-down sweater.
As my sister likes to point out, Dean Ambrose has a great talent for making goofy faces and the first scene in this movie that he shows up in highlights that perfectly. As his cop character is driving to work, he has a stare down with a punky Justin Bieber guy in the next lane. While the gal sitting next to her poor man's bad boy Bieber seems impressed enough to throw a wink at Ambrose, his attempting to look tough look is as intimidating as a warmed up cheeseburger:
Ambrose plays John Shaw, a cop returning to duty after the death of his rookie partner. On his day back, he notices that something is not quite right about a case that former friend and ex-partner Tyler Burke(Roger Cross) has closed regarding the death of a local drug dealer.
Quickly coming across evidence of Burke's corruption. Shaw begins a one man crusade to take him down which leads to a lockdown of the police station. Ambrose does well enough in the one on one fight scenes that he has but I've heard folks reading off of a teleprompter who sound more natural than he does with any of the dialogue here:
The whole plot of this movie is a dumbed down Training Day meets Die Hard, right down to Shaw patching up his wounds with a paper napkin and scotch tape. If you had a drinking game for the number of tired cliches this film has, you would be wasted before the halfway mark of it's thankfully short running time.
The rest of the actors in this cast do a decent job, particularly Roger Cross as the villain. With even such passable acting, Ambrose's non talent sticks out worse than a sore thumb, combined with his lumbering gait that makes him look like a drunken Frankenstein in motion. He also has the thankless task of counting how many bullets are left in his gun(apparently a gimmick that wears out it's welcome fast).
My sis did spot a MacGyver-esque moment when Shaw uses a taser to briefly animate a corpse in order to get the gun in it's cold dead hand firing(she laughed so hard that she bit her lip!). That was as close to being original as this story got, believe you me:
Ambrose hasn't made any more movies since then, being busy with his wrestling career at the moment. That's just as well since his current range of skills seem better suited for the small screen and the square ring right now.
Next time on Wrestle Movie Mania, we veer back into alleged family friendly territory with The Chaperone, starring WWE big shot Triple H. His co-stars include a cast member of Modern Family and a well known voice from The Simpsons, plus Veronica Mars' dad, all of whom are clearly working for a pay check with this one.
At least it's not a sequel, that much I can say in it's favor. However, I suspect that in this case, that statement is damning it with faint praise at best:
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