RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘The Marine’: Who You Gonna Call?
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- What a ride! You will either open your mind to a pithy action thriller or go into reality mode and sink “The Marine” for surviving too many explosions.
WWE sensation John Cena barnstorms his way into potentially niche action hero as a just discharged Marine whose wife Kate (Kelly Carlson) gets nabbed by a group of seriously incompetent diamond thieves. Determined to rescue her, Cena pounds and beats while enduring lots of sacks himself. He’s better at crouching in the forward blast of explosives than in fending off surprise attacks. Of course, this vulnerability makes him a little more on the ‘human’ side, rather than an Arnold S. invincible type. Call him “Marine-Bo,” but seriously this dude has potential.
Overshadowing Cena’s character , though, the tart, spiffy one-line exchanges between the diamond thieves definitely propel the production beyond merely routine. Michelle Gallagher’s screenplay injects absurdities where least expected. As an example, psycho robber Rome (Robert Patrick) tells his fence the deal’s off, then receives a call waiting beep on his phone. His next words, “Does that mean I’m approved for all the premiums and sports packages?”
Patrick, who plays Rick Tolley in “We Are Marshall” has an organized, deadly unpredictable ire that causes police and security guards to go to The Promised Land. However, his strong-man with racial and bug hang-ups , Morgan (Anthony Ray Parker) wins the bad guy most in need of mental health treatment for 2006.
Sporting a black brother chip, no barbell, Parker goes from trigger happy shoot everyone to a man expressing fear of bugs, alligators, hockey masked swamp intruders, “Deliverance” attitudes, and a black man driving an SUV.
Further, Parker and Patrick have a verbal repartee that offsets one’s overly violent conduct with a, call it, a pseudo polite, sophisticated take on the gentleman mobster.
As the script successfully welds the comedic and rugged action in a “Terminator” wisecracker way, the extensive action segments, particularly the demolition derby chases and an upfront blast in which Cena’s seen “riding” the outer edge of the fiery mushroom commandingly dominate.
I will not stoop to predict whether Cena has an action guy future in the same vein as Stallone, Arnold S, or Bruce Willis, but I do praise director John Bonito and the aforementioned script writer. Meshed, shaken and stirred, the team has nitro chemistry as the diamond robbery gone afoul spurs more and more criminal acts and one man’s determination to save his wife.