Before ‘Jumanji,’ Dwayne Johnson’s Wild Adventure Movie Officially Hits Prime Video

There was a time when Dwayne Johnson was still trying to convince Hollywood that he could be more than just the enormous wrestling superstar who liked raising his eyebrow at people, and one of his earliest leading roles remains among his most entertaining. Very early in his leading man career, Johnson headed into the jungle for an adventure that combined the treasure hunting of Indiana Jones with the unlikely buddy comedy of Lethal Weapon.

That movie is The Rundown, from the prolific action director Peter Berg, which is available on Prime Video. The film follows Beck, a fixer and a remover of problems. He doesn’t exactly seek trouble, but trouble is what he needs to get rid of and there’s one final mess he’s got to get out of before he can leave it all behind. At the center of his current trouble is a wise-ass named Travis, a fast-talking double dealer whose dad has commissioned Beck to retrieve from a lingering adventure in Brazil.

Travis proves to be more of a handful than Beck expected, not only because of his mouth and his heels-dug-in reluctance to leave, but because of a couple of other complications he brings with him: Mariana, a no-nonsense local who holds the answers to some of the jungle’s hidden mysteries, and Hatcher, a Colonel Kurtz type who’s turned the jungle and its inhabitants into his own fortune-making, gold-mining empire.

The cast is led by Johnson (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) as Beck, alongside Seann William Scott (American Pie) as Travis Walker, Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka) as Mariana, Christopher Walken (Severance) as Cornelius Hatcher, Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting) as Declan and Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as Harvey.

• He reads ground the way other people read a room.
• He will stand between you and the worst of it without discussing it.
• He says almost nothing, and never the wrong thing.

• The 1982 original came from David Morrell’s 1972 novel, which ends very differently.
• Stallone cut most of his own dialogue in the edit to make the character nearly silent.
• Five films across thirty-seven years, from 1982 to the fifth in 2019.

• He is better in the room than he is on paper, and he is excellent on paper.
• He will not explain the plan, and the plan will work.
• He treats charm as a tool, and it is a remarkably effective one.

• Eon has made twenty-five Bond films since Dr. No in 1962, across six actors.
• Denis Villeneuve is directing the next one for Amazon MGM, which took creative control in
  2025.
• The search for the new 007 was still running through 2026, with screen tests under way.

• He has read the thing nobody else thought to read.
• He will risk the whole plan for the artifact, and be right about half the time.
• He improvises better than most people prepare.

• The Cairo swordsman scene was improvised on the day because Harrison Ford had dysentery.
• Raiders was filmed in about 73 days, which was fast even in 1981.
• Dial of Destiny in 2023 was Ford’s fifth and last outing, at the age of eighty.

• He turns whatever is in the room to his advantage.
• He is funniest when things are at their worst.
• He has never once agreed that it is over.

• Die Hard came from Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to a book
  filmed in 1968.
• Nakatomi Plaza is Fox Plaza, which was the studio’s own headquarters at the time.
• Bruce Willis was a television comedy actor then, and a long way down the casting list.

• He takes the risk himself rather than assigning it.
• He is three moves ahead and will not say which three.
• He treats your survival as the actual objective.

• Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M at a thousand feet for the opening of Rogue
  Nation.
• The HALO jump in Fallout took 106 takes, filmed at dusk for the light.
• The Final Reckoning in 2025 was the eighth film, and was sold as the last.

Was The Rundown a Success?

Despite its reputation as one of Johnson’s most enjoyable early action movies, while he was still at the height of his WWE stardom, The Rundown wasn’t a particularly big theatrical success. It earned approximately $80.9 million worldwide against a reported $85 million production budget. Two things: firstly, that’s a flop, and secondly, that’s a very big budget for a relatively unproven action star at that stage of his career.

Critics and audiences were pretty much on the same page, though, as it currently has a 69% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a 66% audience score. Much of the praise focused on Johnson’s limitless well of charisma, his chemistry with Scott and the film’s entertaining action sequences.

The Rundown is available through Prime Video, with subscription or rental access depending on the viewer’s region.

The Rundown