The Movie:

Kevin Sorbo (of TV's Hercules) plays Nick Prescott, a cop who gives up his life as a county sheriff in order to move to Dallas and start a new life with his FBI agent girlfriend, Katie Jensen (Yvette Nipar who starred alongside Coolio in Fred Olen Ray's Submerged!) and her daughter Samantha (Haley Ramm). As luck would have it, Katie's all set to go to court and deliver a testimony that is sure nail a drug lord named Octavio Perez (Rodrigo De La Rosa) once and for all. Unfortunately for a few key witnesses, Perez has got a lot of men on the outside happy to do his evil bidding, and a well placed hit in a hotel puts a few of her fellow snitches six feet underground. Making matters worse, Katie winds up a victim of these hoods as well. As such, Nick is pretty ticked off. He takes it upon himself to gather up the last surviving witness and make sure she stays safe and sound by stashing her away at his mom's place in some tiny town until the trial is ready to resume. Perez's men want her dead by whatever means necessary however, and they soon make their way to the small town to take her out for good. Thankfully for her, Nick is hanging around waiting for them and he's gathered up a few FBI agents and local cops to help him bring the heat.

The only reason for this film to have Walking Tall in front of its title is to cash in on the success of the original Joe Don Baker/Bo Svenson films and that of the remake starring Duane 'The Rock' Johnson. This film has nothing to do whatsoever with Bufford T. Pusser, in fact, it doesn't even deal with a single man and his unique method of justice. By teaming Nick up with other law enforcement officials this sequel really just makes him a reluctant cop, not a solitary force for vengeance or justice.

That said, based on its own merits and not judged alongside the movies that it has been named after, Walking Tall - Lone Justice is okay. It's not great, by any stretch, but it's okay. Sorbo is a little too friendly looking to work as the lead and you expect him to spout off some witty lines at any given moment but he does do well in the action scenes and handles the combat scenes with more realism than you might expect. Rodrigo De La Rosa is enjoyably sleazy as the bad buy and he turns in a decent performance even if his character is little more than a stereotype.

Director Tripp Reed (who previously directed Sorbo as Nick Prescott in the first straight to video sequel in the franchise, Walking Tall - The Payback) keeps things moving at a very good pace and even when things get very predictable and deal in clichés at least the film is never boring. We know as soon as the gunmen show up in the little 7-11 type convenience store that Nick is shopping at that he's going to take them down and hard, there's no real element of surprise in this opening scene or in many of the action set pieces that follow, but it's fun to watch regardless. A few moments of honestly shocking violence show up towards the end of the picture and earn the movie its R-rating and the scene in which Nick and his charge have to hide from the bad guys in a hospital is moderately suspenseful. A few too many of the fight scenes are hurt by some irritating shaky-cam cinematography, however. Whether this was done to hide some lackluster fight choreography or as a stylistic choice is unknown but it is rather distracting and the post production tweaking that's been done to so much of the film definitely hurts more than it helps.

Ultimately, however, Walking Tall - Lone Justice is simply average. It's entertaining if you're willing and able to turn off your brain and enjoy the carnage but it leaves no lasting impact nor does it bring anything original to the screen. It's not a horrible film, but neither is it a good one and it obviously went straight to video for a reason...

Video:

Sony presents Walking Tall - Lone Justice in an anamorphic widescreen transfer framed at 1.78.1 and judging by the compositions, it's safe to say that this is the aspect ratio in which the film was meant to be seen. Whether intentional or not, there's a strong green hue to the film that washes out some of the other colors and which doesn't do the intentionally grainy looking cinematography any real favors. Add to that some obvious edge enhancement and a little bit of aliasing here and there and the picture winds up looking a little too 'digital' for its own good. That said, there aren't any compression artifacts and detail levels are fairly decent - it just looks like there was a little too much post production tweaking done to the picture.