One of the most fascinating things about the success of the actor/entertainer Dwayne Johnson is the dichotomy of his successful rise to stardom. For Johnson is not just Johnson, but also The Rock, the hugely successful alter ego he created as a professional wrestler, a doppleganger that brought him unprecedented, iconic fame unlikely to be equalled in his lifetime. Now bumpily transitioning into a bona fide Hollywood action star in films like the new WALKING TALL, Johnson has a natural charisma and a magnetic ability to hold the screen. But truth be told, audiences don't show up to see a guy named Dwayne. It is wrestling that made The Rock (and only secondarily Johnson) a star, and it remains the doppleganger's monicker above the title.

Watching this singular performer onscreen is fascinating from a pop-cultural perspective -- it is a real actor playing a fictional persona playing a movie role. The disconnects are obvious but not without their charms, and it's a credit to Johnson -- the actor, in both contexts -- that he manages to find a well-grounded, developed performance style despite all the celebrity-fueled bullshit that surrounds him and his career. Buried under the doppleganger is a regular guy...with rather formidable talent.

In his starring roles to date -- a mythical ruler in The Scorpion King, a beleagured rebel in the underrated jungle drama The Rundown -- one could see Johnson straining to please his core audience while reaching to find a complex read that might win over other fans. Pleasing the passionate wrestling devotees -- who want, justifiably, to see their hero in physically active roles -- is difficult enough, but even harden when simultaneously trying to prove himself a real actor. For those who don't know what the initials WWE stand for, let me catch you up: The Rock was always the most stylish of wrestlers, featuring arched eyebrows and catchphrases that belied a martini-dry wit. It is not hard, therefore, to imagine that Dwayne Johnson might be (gasp) deeper than the bouts on UPN's Smackdown had led us to believe.

WALKING TALL, The Rock's remake of the 1973 classic starring Joe Don Baker, is perhaps the most compelling tightrope act for this performer yet. On one side, it is unquestionably Johnson's largest acting challenge to date. But it is also a story squarely targeted at a very particular audience -- conservative males who reside in Middle America. As fantasy wish fulfillment for neocons in the heartland, WALKING TALL pays the ultimate tribute to those good, hardworking rural folk who make up The Rock's feverish fan base...it makes him one of them.

Chris Vaughn (The Rock) is a newly-retired Special Forces soldier who, after almost a decade away, returns to his quiet Tennessee hometown only to find that things have changed precipitiously in his absence. Once supported by an industrial mill, the town has lost its economic and moral center. In its place at the center of community life is the Wild Cherry casino, run by Vaughn's high school nemesis, Jay Hamilton (Neal McDonough).  A cornucopia of sin, vice, and indulgence, the Wild Cherry not only supports a thriving gambling business, but copious illegal drugs and very willing strippers. Hamilton has bought off the local sheriff, so the town is at his mercy. Vaughn, outraged at these events, decides that one man can make a difference (the press kit's cliche, not mine)...and suddenly, there's a new sheriff in town. And he carries a mighty big stick.

There's an obvious appeal to WALKING TALL at this particular point, at this particular time, in America. The radio and television are filled with indignant Republicans who endlessly bemoan the creeping corruption, vice, and indecency they see pervading the culture. Janet Jackson's breast, gay marriage, and Joe Lieberman are all signs of the degeneration of American life. And what we need, the Fox News analysts tell us nightly, is a hero to clean it all up -- or rather, to open a massive can of whup-ass. Enter Chris Vaughn, disgusted not only with the more obvious sins, but with the wholesale commercialization of the previously pristine American dystopia. (When he finds that the town hardware store has been closed in the wake of a recently-opened Home Depot, he can only shake his head in disgusted disbelief.)

It's all quite charmingly retro -- an entire small town stuck timelessly in an earlier era, co-opting Paddy Chayefsky's immortal line from Network about being mad as hell and not taking it anymore. Here, however, The Rock makes it more personal; he says to the local townspeople at one point, "people here used to walk tall." Every audience member, wherever they live, can nod their heads at that sentiment when thinking of their own lives.

Except one thing. This America portrayed in WALKING TALL -- with its small-town, aww-shucks, holier-than-thou purity -- doesn't really allow for a man like The Rock. While he may be playing a common man of the people, there is nothing about Dwayne Johnson that is commonplace.  Begin with his sheer volume: he is an enormous man, incredibly handsome even by Hollywood standards, with a chemically-whitened smile that could blind people without sunglasses on. He is, to be frank, a Star...not a mere mortal. Even more problematic is the sticky issue of race -- with a man of mixed-race heritage as its lead, WALKING TALL suddenly finds itself stretching the bounds of Tennessean reality with an interracial set of seniors as Chris' parents. As the only non-white characters in the film, Chris, his sister and Chris Sr. (John Beasley) are embraced in this community through an invisible sheen of multi-cultural correctness. It's almost as if the filmmakers said, if we don't mention it in the film, maybe no one will notice the blip in the otherwise Caucasian radar.

In truth, however, WALKING TALL is not that subtle most of the time. With a running time of only 86 minutes, there's no space for much character development -- the corrupt bad guys are readily identifiable, mainly because they don't bother to hide it. They sneer and make enough faces to fill ten gangster movies. Lest the romance be too confusing, there's one (and only one) girl in the story to attract Vaughn's attention, and she gets only one scene in the entire first half of the film. Besides the buddy (an unremarkable Johnny Knoxville) and the baddie (McDonough), WALKING TALL seems to stare out at the viewer asking...what else is really important?

Ultimately, it is this lack of sophistication that may be the fatal flaw in WALKING TALL. There are valid points to be made about the rapidly transforming cultural landscape of America, and the idea of a modern-day Everyman taking on the Establishment is ripe for revision. But painting these issues with Color-By-Numbers simplicity is neither entertaining or interesting to wrestling fans or anyone else. Lacking style in design, cinematography, and direction, WALKING TALL just ends up feeling like a missed opportunity.

Revise that. It feels like a missed opportunity for Dwayne Johnson. The Rock will always be an action star, but Johnson shows enough sheer starpower and talent to become an A-list talent in comedy and drama as well. His next film may prove me right: Be Cool, a sequel to the hit comedy Get Shorty with John Travolta. In his first comedic role, The Rock will be both the villain and gay. That may alienate the Smackdown legions, but for those who want to see this actor reach a potential beyond WALKING TALL, it may be exactly what the doctor ordered.

-- Gabriel Shanks

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