- Title: The Rock
- IMDb: link
Flashback Friday takes us back to director Michael Bay‘s best film. Sure you could make a case for Armageddon, and some (not me) would argue for Bad Boys II. However, the most successful movie of the popcorn director’s career is unquestionably the 1996 film that united Sean Connery as an aging British Secret Agent unjustly imprisoned for decades after stealing the United States’ most precious secrets and Nicolas Cage as an FBI chemist who find themselves responsible for saving the lives of 81 hostages from mercenaries who have taken control of Alcatraz.
Our team of terrorists is led by decorated and honorable Brigadier General Francis Hummel (Ed Harris) tired of seeing soldiers not properly acknowledged nor their families compensated. Stealing 15 VX rockets and bunking down on Alcatraz, Hummel and his force made up of former soldiers under his command and less honorable mercenaries there for the pay-out, threaten to launch the missiles into San Francisco if their demands are not met.
With limited options, a team is sent to stop them which includes desk jockey Stanley Goodspeed (Cage) whose knowledge is necessary to disable to the rockets and contain the chemical threat. Also added to the group is imprisoned SAS officer John Mason (Connery) who is one of the only living men to ever escape Alcatraz. We get a fun couple of early interactions between the pair when Stanley nearly pisses himself offering Mason a deal his boss (John Spencer) immediately renegs on and the chase across the city where Stanley tracks down Mason after he escapes from FBI custody.
Highlights of the film include that early chase sequence, the insertion of the team led by Michael Biehn (who, like most of the team is killed quickly) making their way into the tunnels under the prison, and the back-and-forth between the Cage and Connery across the various stunt sequences that make up the remainder of the film. We also get quite a few familiar faces in various roles including David Morse as Hummel’s right-hand man, Vanessa Marcil as Stanley’s fiancé, Claire Forlani as Mason’s estranged daughter, and Tony Todd as one of the mercenaries.
The Rock is the kind of balls-to-the-wall crazy action films that Bay enjoys. The casting of Connery as an elderly James Bond in all all but name is genius, and Cage gets to chew a hell of a lot of scenery over the course of the film’s 136-minute running-time. The script isn’t without its flaws, and Bay’s cheap flag-waving patriotism is stamped all over it, but it’s still one of the least-dumb stories Bay ever attempted to make into a film with some quite enjoyable results that stand up nearly three decades later.
Watch the trailer
