Reviewed by Cassam Looch
Stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Madison Pettis,
Kyra Sedgwick, Roselyn Sanchez, Morris Chestnut,
Hayes MacArthur, Brian White, Paige Turco
Written by Nicole Millard & Kathryn Price
Certification UK U | US PG
Runtime 110 minutes
Directed by Andy Fickman
Relying on a lead actor's natural charm and charisma alone comes with its obvious problems. Will audiences be willing to forgive a dodgy script, predictable plots and unconvincing support? It’s a question that is offered up by this Disney family movie starring former pro wrestler Dwayne Johnson. And the answer is...
Joe Kingman is an Elvis-obsessed quarterback for an American football team on its way to the playoffs. Following another successful season things are looking up, and Joe is living it up as a single, good-looking man with far too much time and money on his hands. Then out of the blue an eight-year-old girl called Payton shows up claiming to be his daughter, and after initial doubts Kingman realises she is telling the truth. At first, with the season heading to a climax and in the midst of chasing lucrative sponsorship deals, Joe is only a distant father, but his actions end up alienating him from his fans and he is surprised to find that playing the doting father does wonders for his popularity. Whilst enlisting Payton into a ballet school, Joe realises there is more to fatherhood than he first thought, and he begins to enjoy spending time with his daughter. Both of them know this is only a temporary measure, but is Payton telling the whole truth?
As well as relying on Dwayne Johnson, the film also requires a believable turn from the youngster (Madison Pettis) and she delivers in spades. In a role that could have been utterly annoying, Madison is actually likeable as the precocious kid looking for her dad, and she holds her own against her onscreen father. Their relationship is well done, normally you’d see a lot of unnecessary posturing early on, but the film gets straight down to action as Kingman accepts his daughter, but just doesn’t know what to do next.
The Rock, sorry Dwayne Johnson (yeah, I remember when he was slamming people over the head with steel chairs knocking them out for exactly three seconds before they made a miraculous recovery) is a competent actor. The serious stuff does veer into schmaltz and he’s not aided by the limp script, which at times has potential for laughs galore but instead settles for mild chuckles. It’s in these lighter moments though that you get to see exactly what the appeal is… even in his wrestling days Johnson was never the best technically, he relied almost entirely on performance and humour and it's on show here again. Given a better script and a shorter runtime (why is this nearly two hours long?) this could have been very good. The answer to the earlier question is: yeah, alright then, but just once more. Next time we’ll be a lot less forgiving…