For the primary 10 years of his film appearing profession, Dwayne Johnson was hungry to earn his bonafides as a severe performer. Oh certain, he was greater than prepared to play to a budget seats by starring in stuff like “The Scorpion King” and “Doom.” However this was additionally the period through which the wrestling legend labored with “Donnie Darko” director Richard Kelly on his gonzo cult curiosity “Southland Tales” and gleefully preened in entrance of a mirror as an out-and-proud homosexual bodyguard in F. Gary Grey’s “Get Shorty” sequel “Be Cool.” Having but to determine a clean-cut model for himself, the 2000s noticed The Rock taking the sort of dangers he would shirk for a decade after lastly making it large within the motion pictures.
That prolonged to Johnson’s motion movies as properly. When The Rock confirmed up as Luke Hobbs in 2011’s “Quick 5” (solely one of many best motion motion pictures of all time), the federal agent was removed from the large cinnamon roll he would grow to be in later sequels and his spinoff. As a substitute, he was a troublesome ol’ son-of-a-gun completely decided to perform the duty assigned to him, no questions requested. A yr earlier than that, although, Johnson performed an excellent steelier, morally murkier antihero on a mission in “Sooner,” an action-thriller that places a far darker spin on the theme of brotherhood than the similarly-titled “Quick & Livid” motion pictures ever have. It additionally took in much less throughout its whole run on the field workplace than most of these movies grossed of their opening weekend alone ($35.8 million worldwide), making it however considered one of an ever-growing variety of forgotten theatrical flops to achieve an surprising second shot at life on Netflix.
Dwayne Johnson’s Sooner is racing to the highest of the Netflix charts
There actually must be a scientific time period at this level for style motion pictures that get broadly ignored in theaters solely to grow to be hits on Netflix years later when subscribers who’ve by no means even heard of them earlier than, a lot much less seen them, start streaming them in big numbers. Such is the case with “Sooner,” which — per the helpful streaming viewership and date aggregator FlixPatrol — had climbed to the quantity two spot in Netflix’s day by day high 10 movies within the U.S. as of December 4, 2024. In the meantime, the streamer’s unique rom-com “Our Little Secret” continues to carry regular in first place, affirming that even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson isn’t any match for Lindsay Lohan (naturally).
Written by siblings Joe and Tony Gayton (who would go on to create AMC’s hit Western sequence “Hell on Wheels”) and directed by George Tillman Jr. (“Infamous,” “The Hate U Give”), “Sooner” sees Johnson enjoying a convict who, recent out of jail, hundreds up a gun and hops into his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle to drive off and kill a bunch of individuals complicit within the dying of his brother. Between its sophisticated sense of morality, bleak tone, and a twisty plot involving honorable hitmen and unscrupulous police detectives, “Sooner” reads prefer it might’ve simply as readily been a seedy neo-noir thriller as a high-octane shoot-em-up. In his combined assessment, the late Roger Ebert even argued that the movie would’ve been higher off leaning more durable into its noir trappings, writing:
“Sooner” is a pure thriller, all blood, no frills, through which lots of people get shot, largely within the head. Rotate the plot, change the interval, spruce up the dialogue, and this might have been a hard-boiled Nineteen Forties noir. Nevertheless it does not pause for wonderful touches and effectively delivers motion for an viewers that likes one-course meals.
Most critics appeared to have related ideas to Ebert again in 2010, judging by the movie’s 41 p.c score on Rotten Tomatoes. 14 years later, although, “Sooner” would possibly really feel just a little more energizing and supply a glimpse of what Johnson is able to when he is prepared to go darker on display screen … and never in a “Black Adam” form of approach (which might additionally portend properly for his upcoming flip in Benny Safdie’s gritty sports activities biopic “The Smashing Machine”). There’s just one strategy to discover out: you possibly can stream “Sooner” on Netflix proper now.
