Well, well, well. Would you lookee what we got here, boy? Looks to me like we got ourselves a gut-bustin', bone-crunchin', head whompin', ass-kickin' small town Texas revenge fantasy stomp-fest called Walking Tall: The Payback. Starring Hercules' Kevin Sorbo, Walking Tall: The Payback is a surprisingly solid little actioner that's as unpretentious as it is speedy; it gets right to its story, does what it needs to do, and exits quickly. I was expecting less than nothing when I saw this was a direct-to-video "sequel in name-only" to the recent "remake" of that genuine drive-in classic, Walking Tall, starring Joe Don Baker. As a rule of thumb -- and one that usually tracks at nine out of ten times -- remakes blow (the last good one was Ben-Hur in 1959), so I generally avoid them. Having had the pleasure of catching the original Walking Tall in its proper setting (a nasty backwoods drive-in with a whole lot of scary people around us), I had no desire to see The Rock ruin my memories. But Walking Tall: The Payback is so far removed from the original that I was able to sit back and enjoy it.

In the small town of Boone, Texas, there's a palpable feeling of menace and foreboding as the Morris brothers, evil Harvey (A. J. Buckley) and stupid Walter (Bentley Mitchum), put the screws to local businessmen, buying up properties left and right regardless of whether or not there's a "for sale" out. Long-time sheriff Charlie Prescott (Richard Dillard) smells a rat, and goes about investigating the death of Otis (Matthew Posey), a gas station owner who didn't want to sell out to the Morris brothers, and who went sky high on top of a gas fireball when one of Harvey's henchman took him out. Too bad F.B.I. agent Kate Jensen (Yvette Nipar) didn't take Charlie's concerns seriously; she rejected his theory out of hand when he goes to the Dallas F.B.I. headquarters for help.

Charlie then unloads his story on friend Det. Pete Michaels, but little does Charlie know that Michaels works for Lou Dowdy (Todd Terry), a hatchet man for Traxell Byrne (Jerry Cotton), a powerful trucking magnate who's behind the mysterious land grabs in Boone. When he's tipped off about Charlie's activities, Harvey, fed up with Charlie's meddling and his chief-of-police brother Walter's incompetence, decides to take out Charlie himself. What Harvey didn't know was that Charlie also paid a visit to his son, Nick (Kevin Sorbo), filling him on the details of Morris brothers' actions. And when Harvey succeeds in killing Charlie, he didn't count on Nick coming back home to Boone for some Southern justice - Texas style.

I'm unfamiliar with director Tripp Reed's work, but he has a clean, uncluttered style that's perfectly suited to this stripped down revenge fantasy. Walking Tall: The Payback isn't anything new to the average action fan; we've seen it all before. At this point, a movie like Walking Tall: The Payback can only impress us with all-out action (it doesn't have that) or a trim style that doesn't insult our intelligence (it does have that). What action there is, and I would have preferred a tad more, is mounted correctly and logically, and beautifully shot by Jas Shelton. The story keys into its target audience nicely. Themes of revenge spring naturally from the crude murders of loved ones, and from the notion that little people get ground up in the machinations of all-encompassing corruption. Sure, the film does have some howlers. When Hap (Dell Johnson), the kindly deputy sheriff (you just know he's gonna die) asks Nick just what the hell he's doing, baiting Herb (Marc Macauley), one of Harvey's goons, Nick replies, "Something. Just somebody doing something." I don't think I've ever heard a more vague, unmotivated excuse for violence in a film, but I have to tell you; after hearing that, Walking Tall: The Payback instantly endeared itself to me. It takes a lot of guts to be that deliberately fey in an action movie.

The only possible drawback in Walking Tall: The Payback is the lead performance by Kevin Sorbo. Now, I don't want any of you Sorbo freaks to start emailing me. I like Kevin Sorbo, okay? I've seen him in other roles, and he's a perfectly competent actor. And in Walking Tall: The Payback's action scenes, Sorbo's well suited to whompin' somebody and making it look believable. But Sorbo is just a little too polished, a little too California for the role of a pissed off Texas boy looking for some sweet, sweet, bad-assed justice. That hair's just a little too well coiffed for my comfort. Even his character's name - Nick Prescott - sounds more like Yale than Amarillo. For comparison, just look at Joe Don Baker in the original Walking Tall. Fleshy, wild-haired, with mean little pig eyes and too-tight polyester, Baker is a freaking genius at tapping into the gestalt of his gun-totin' redneck audience (it must have been "Gun Rack Night" when I saw this at the drive-in). And look at that character's name: Buford T. Pusser. That's one ugly name (in a good way, all you Bufords out there). Meanwhile, the yacht regatta is at four o'clock, Mr. Nick Prescott. Still, Sorbo's a total pro (endless days swinging that sword, no doubt), and when the director lets him jump into action, he's just fine. The rest of the performances are competently done, with a nice turn by Buckley as Harvey, the nasty villain of the piece. The villain always makes or breaks a film like Walking Tall: The Payback, and Buckley is suitably reprehensible.

The DVD:

The Video:
The cinematography is razor sharp in Walking Tall: The Payback, and this 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, remastered in High Def, is crystal clear.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo soundtrack blows you back during the action scenes; the 5.1 also comes in Portuguese, Spanish and Thai. The French soundtrack is in Dolby Surround. Subtitles come in English, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai.

The Extras:
There are some trailers for other action flicks from MGM and Sony, as well as some deleted scenes that, like most deleted scenes on DVDs, were deleted for a reason.

Final Thoughts:
Surprisingly entertaining in a totally undemanding way, Walking Tall: The Payback is clean, mean, and not too far between its open and exit times. On-point and nicely executed, Walking Tall: The Payback isn't anything new, but it doesn't insult your action-lovin' eyes, either. I recommend Walking Tall: The Payback.