12rounds_posterMiles Jackson is your typical carefree, widely feared, international terrorist walking the streets of New Orleans with the FBI tracking his movements in an undercover, clandestine, sting that he knows all about.  There’s a double cross at the beginning of 12 Rounds perpetrated by Miles against another criminal in league with the feds that sends the feds scrambling blind while Miles is casually escaping, stopping to smell the roses along the way.

Enter John Cena as New Orleans Police Officer Danny Fisher.  He and his partner stop Miles and his fiance for questioning (because Danny recognized her from the video footage provided by the feds).  Miles gets gun happy, shoots Danny’s partner in the ass.  Miles and his woman race off, and Danny, because he is John Cena, chases them on foot cutting across lawns and taking shortcuts through houses.  Believe it or not, Danny catches up to them and stops them with a runaway boat (I know, I know, a boat).  Miles and his girl try to get away, resulting in his honey getting run down right in the street by a speeding motorist (in a truck, not a boat).  Miles promises Danny that he’ll not forget this injustice that has been committed against him.

Jump to a year later, Danny and his partner are detectives and Miles breaks out of prison and kidnaps Danny’s woman.  In order to save her, Danny runs all over New Orleans with the help of the fire department, the police department, and the FBI, narrowly surviving one trap after another.  Miles is pissed and really wants revenge.


12 Rounds is sluggish, unexciting, dull, and ultimately stupid.  Stupid I can handle, stupid I can accept.  But it’s just not fun.  It’s eleven rounds and about eighty-something minutes too long.  Director Renny Harlin is unable to recapture his glory days of Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger (hell, I even liked Mindhunters and The Exorcist:  The Beginning).  This is a sad knock-off of the Die Hard franchise.  It’s also a sad imitation of an action film; it does everything bad.  All the standard notes are hit.  Again and again and again.  I mean 12 Rounds really beats a dead horse.  The crazy, sloppy, camera work beats it doubly.

And no one is believable in the slightest.  No one playing a cop, no one playing a fed, no one.  John Cena has the potential to be a great action star, if he can find his Terminator or his Commando.  In this movie he draws attention for all the wrong reasons.  His charisma is sadly absent.

1.5 out of 5
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