Dwayne Johnson proved that he was an actor of a prize ceremony long before “ the smashing machine ” in this classic cult

Since the first successful first of Benny Safdie‘s THE SMASHING Machine At Venice Film Festival recently, there have been a lot of praise for Dwayne JohnsonThe impressive performance is impressive, as well as predictions for major price appointments for him. However, Nothing presents itself as a surprise for attentive viewers, who have followed the career as an actor of Johnson And are therefore aware of its versatile range. Although it is generally hailed as a perfect action hero who also has impressive comic chops, Johnson has also demonstrated his ability to be aware of oneself and to blend perfectly with the most unexpected and bizarre cinematographic worlds. One of the early but memorable examples of this in the actor’s career is Richard Kelly‘s Southland tales – wonderfully extravagance out of the 2006 rails, which can be described at a distance as a thriller of dystopian satire with musical numbers.

In this wild film, Dwayne Johnson can play a very different type of hero

Johnson plays one of the various protagonists of a complex plot – An amnesiac actor, the Santaros boxer, took between several parts aimed at using it to advance their own program. This one hour and a half wild driving also includes Sarah Michelle Gellar As a politically engaged porn star who wishes to change the brand, two versions of Old Williams ScottMaleficent state societies all out of George OrwellThe dystopian prose, the fourth dimension, the radical neo-Marxists, the global disasters which now seem more realistic than twenty years ago, and Justin Timberlakewhich tells the text on the apocalypse. In 2006, Such a film was the last thing that was expected of the director very acclaimed Donnie Darkothat led to Southland tales Have a fairly disastrous first at the Cannes Film Festival and become a huge critical failure and the box office.

But it is not even the strangeness of the plot, which, depending on the perspective or the mood, one can find complex or simply absurd, which makes Southland tales Stand out and cause such strong reactions. It is the Unique intonation of the film which transforms the relevant satire on the social and political anxieties of the time into a comic epicA hypertext with a myriad of references to pop culture, philosophy and religion. These days, of course, Kelly’s work, who has managed to gain cult over the years, surrounded by talks to potentially extend the film tradition in a franchise, feels not only curious and exciting but also nostalgic In the context of the making of contemporary big budget films. Even if the ideas of the film are entirely relevant today and that its multiplot account is not surprising, there is no way that something like it could have been produced by a large studio these days.

Auto -ironie becomes the secret weapon that Johnson is not afraid to use – and the “Southland tales” either

As is generally the case with complex films, Southland tales Actually requires many of its actors. Satires only work when they are played more or less with right faces, and the casting of Kelly’s film, led by Johnson, is a perfect example. In the case of Johnson, It is interesting that this role comes to what essentially represents the early stage of his acting career. As a general rule, participation in a risky author’s project like this, which offers a gap in relation to the established screen personality, generally comes much later in most of the actors’ filmographies. In 2006, most of Johnson’s roles, such as his brief appearance as King Scorpion The mummy returns or the more full -fledged version of the character in the eponymous film of 2002, were mainly on the basis of his physique and his charisma.

Films like Support (where he played alongside Seann William Scott for the first time) and Have a cool gave Johnson the opportunity to also present his comic capacities to a certain extent, but has not really offered much in this sense beyond certain typical gags. Southland tales became the first film which took into account the powerful powerful presence of the actor, but also allowed him a vulnerability – something he would develop in his subsequent performance, like those in Pain and gain And The breaking machine. While Southland tales is not a typical story by any account, there is an element that can be considered conventional. A character from amnesia, Johnson Santaros’ boxer, becomes our point of entry into the storyWhile he strives to give meaning to everything that happens around him. Being lost between the more and more crazy reality and your own familiar image of a beloved hero gives Santaros a glimpse of relatibility, which helps us to anchor in this spectacularly bizarre world.

And since Southland tales is an overall film at the base, Johnson also has the opportunity to demonstrate his ability to move away from being a traditional leading man and working in tandem. His scenes with Scott are particularly interesting, because their dynamics are so very different from that Supportand his short episodes with Gellar and his wife, played by Mandy MooreDemonstrate that the actor does not take much to establish a link, whatever the bizarre, credible exterior. The best advantage of Johnson’s performance here, however, is that it is not only rooted in charisma but in self -awareness and auto-ironie. Some aspects of the film could be forgotten after a while, but Johnson puts on a suit with a firearm (his uniform Become intelligentWho will come out two years later), presenting a ridiculous script with a wonderfully silly pathos, and a negotiating stoking with a woman desperately demanding to give her a blowjob – it is the legends thing.