The Rock (1996)

Can you believe this movie is nearly 20 years old? This was one of

Sean Connery’s last major movies before retiring. Though, even as a 66 year old he looked like he could have gone another 10 years yet, considering how much output the likes of Arnold and Stallone are pumping out in their mid 60′s.

This is another one I will confess, I will put in the ‘okay

Nicolas Cage was quite good in this’ category as the wise cracking, field-novice, bio-chemical expert FBI agent Stanley Goodspeed.

Now while the movie has some wonderful witty dialogue, this movie is one of

Michael Bay’s classic outings. All the usual Bay trademarks are here; slow lingering close up shots, slow silhouette walking through smoke, short to wide sweeping shots .. all the usual ingredients are here.

Carla: [after telling Stanley she’s pregnant] You didn’t mean what you just said, did you?
Goodspeed: When?
Carla: Just right now, when you were talking about bringing a child into the world, and having it be an act of cruelty.
Goodspeed: I meant it at the time.
Carla: Stanley, “at the time”? You said it seven and a half seconds ago!
Goodspeed: Well… gosh, kind of a lot’s happened since then.

The story has

Ed Harris as a military General who is sick and tired of the lies his government partakes in to not recognize the fallen soldiers in covert operations. He and his merry band of men, steal a highly secretive chemical weapon (that are basically green christmas tree balls) setup some rockets pointing at San Francisco from Alcatraz, holding the government to ransom for the sum of $100M. With this money he wants to pay the families of the fallen soldiers and then take $13M for him and his men to high tail it off to a country they can live their life out without fear of US extradition.

How does one break into the Rock? Well, how about you ask for the help of the only person to have known to have escaped from the place? Enter, ex-British SAS covert operative, who has been held in a USA jail without trial for 30 years – our dear friend Mr Connery.

Though, today’s news is somewhat interesting, considering there seems to be proof that 2 people did indeed successfully escape and were living in Brazil in 1975.

We then have rookie and ex-disgruntled operative going in with a seal team to liberate the island. Of course, the seal team gets eliminated after a skirmish leaving our two heroes to save the day.

The movie is completely riddled with plot holes but don’t let that get in the way of the corny setups and subsequent dialogue (keep an eye out for the Elton John reference that you should be able to write precisely what is about to be said).

Enjoyable romp, from a stellar top shelf class (Cage not withstanding).