Traditional storytelling begins with an exposition. The story told in this movie, however, is hardly traditional, so the exposition in this movie abruptly segues into the key event triggering all subsequent conflicts. Presumably, this reflects the way it would have happened in the true story this movie is based on: suddenly, unexpectedly, with no time to brace for impact.
And that impact has ripple effects. A college-bound teenage boy makes one mistake, gets into serious trouble with the law, but makes the idealistic moral choice not to drag anyone else down with him, even though he faces the dire consequence of serious hard time in prison.
His father (Dwayne Johnson), determined to keep that dire consequence from becoming reality, not only goes the direction opposite from his son's, but along the way double-crosses a man who works for him.
Though selfish in this regard, he is willing to subject himself to hazards far greater than those faced by his unwitting accomplice, all in order to save his son. For that, he even reaches out to the seedy, violent netherworld of international drug cartels.
Dwayne Johnson's character encounters various moral dilemmas caused by his actions on several fronts, and he doesn't think them all through. But then the times don't call for thinking; they call for action. And action this movie delivers galore.
Pragmatic and moral choices engage in a sort of oblique arm-wrestling, and the prospect of emerging victorious competes with that of utter devastation of innocent lives.
And that impact has ripple effects. A college-bound teenage boy makes one mistake, gets into serious trouble with the law, but makes the idealistic moral choice not to drag anyone else down with him, even though he faces the dire consequence of serious hard time in prison.
His father (Dwayne Johnson), determined to keep that dire consequence from becoming reality, not only goes the direction opposite from his son's, but along the way double-crosses a man who works for him.
Though selfish in this regard, he is willing to subject himself to hazards far greater than those faced by his unwitting accomplice, all in order to save his son. For that, he even reaches out to the seedy, violent netherworld of international drug cartels.
Dwayne Johnson's character encounters various moral dilemmas caused by his actions on several fronts, and he doesn't think them all through. But then the times don't call for thinking; they call for action. And action this movie delivers galore.
Pragmatic and moral choices engage in a sort of oblique arm-wrestling, and the prospect of emerging victorious competes with that of utter devastation of innocent lives.