The Rock (2011 Film)

The Rock is a 2011 action film remake of the 1996 Michael Bay film directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis.

Plot
Brigadier General Joseph Ryker attends a military graveyard to visit his late wife while flashing back to a number of illegal cladestine missions he oversaw, resulting in the deaths of many men. He then explains by his wife's graveside that he needs to change the way the government thinks, but he couldn't do it while she was still alive. He then wonders if she will forgive him.

Ryker leads a group of rogue US Marines to a secure army bunker to steal a stockpile of rockets armed with the deadly VX poison gas. They raid the facility but a pearl containing the gas is dropped, forcing them to seal off a room and leave one of their own to rot.

The next day, Ryker and his old friend and comrade Major Blake arrive at Alcatraz Island amongst a tour group with their men. The tour guide, "Ranger Jerry" allows the group to enter the cells and have them temporarily locked inside in order to let them experience what the prisoners felt. Just then, Ryker's men storm the prison and take the tour operators hostage, locking them in with the tourists. Some more men then arrive via helicopter, led by Captains Fry and Darrow, who have never served under Ryker. Ryker contacts the US Government and demands a ransom, with which he will pay the families of the soldiers who died on those illegal missions and were enver recognized. If not, he will fire the VX rockets at San Francisco.

In LA, FBI bioweapon specialist Jack Cale learns that his fiancé Rachel is pregnant with their child, to which he is overjoyed. However, he is then summoned to San Francisco, apparently as part of a training excercise. Once he arrives, he learns that he will be consulting a team of Navy Seals who are planning to retake the island. However, the FBI soon realise that any attempt to gain access to the island will be seen by Ryker and his men. They take a last resort; to release federal prisoner Jacob Morse, who has been illegally detained for years due to uncovering a multitude of classified secrets, and the only man to have ever escaped from the rock. Cale is shocked when he learns that he will be joining the team. He calls Rachel but as the mission is classified he cannot tell her why, but he tells her that he loves her. Rachel, frustrated, decides to come to San Francisco despite his pleas for her not to.

As the team departs, Rachel arrives and learns of the situation, and is horrified. The team arrive on the island after swimming to the shore and gain access to the prisoner via the underground tunnel system, which Morse has memorised. They find themselves in the shower room, but are cornered by Ryker and his men, who detected them with a motion device set up in the shower room. Ryker orders the captain to stand down, but the captain acknowledges that he cannot make that order. The sadistic Fry opens fire, resulting a gun fight although Ryker tries to prevent it. Cale and Morse remain in the tunnel and remain undetected. Ryker descends into the shower room and finds a camera on the badly injured captain, connecting him to the FBI base in San Francisco. He remidns them that this was not what he wanted, but has not been undeterred. Out of mercy, he then shoots the captain through the head, killing him.

Believing the mission to be a failure, the FBI prepares for it's next course of action when they realise that Cale and Morse are still alive and may still be able to disable the rockets. On the island, Cale argues with Morse, who is trying to leave and persuade Cale that he should also go, but Cale reminds him that his daughter lives in San Francisco and is danger from Ryker's rockets. Morse then agrees to stay and help him take out the rockets.

They make their way through the prison, with Morse killing a small team of marines sent to kill them. Out of the 15 rockets on the island, Cale disables 12. When Ryker realises that they are still alive, he is forced to threaten the lfie of a hostage of the loudspeaker. Once again, Fry is quick to act and uses a combat knife to gut Jerry, after which Ryker vomits. Trying to buy Cale time to disable the remaining rockets, Morse surrenders. However, Cale only manages to disable one more before he to is captured. Believing all to be lost on the island, the FBI calls in their back up plan; fighter jets armed with a special chemical which will neutralize the gas, however the bombing will also wipe out the 80 remaining hostages. The decision to approve the air strike is left to the only recently elected President of the United States, putting him in his first real crisis and a state of despair.

In much the same vein he originally got out, Morse breaks he and Cale out of their holding cells but decides to make a run for it, hoping to get his daughter and flee the city with her. Cale decides to return to the prison and disable the last rockets. However, on his way back he is cornered by one of the mercenaries. Before he can be executed, Morse returns and breaks the man's neck, and then agrees to help Cale.

With the deadline upon them, the marines are forced to fire one of the rockets, but at the last minute Ryker alters the coordinates and it crashes into the sea. Enraged, Fry takes Darrow to confront Ryker along with a young sergeant. Ryker tells them that the mission is over, but Fry decides to relieve him of his command. Ryker challenges him, stating that he is a psychopath. Fry gleefully agrees and then reminds Blake that he is the only one yet to take a side. Blake draws his gun on Ryker, but unable to shoot his old friend, turns on Fry and Darrow, managing to shoot the latter in the shoulder before he is gunned down. In the ensuing firefight, while Cale and Morse watch from afar, Ryker shoots the sergeant but is then fatally shot by Fry. Morse covers Cale while he drags Ryker to safety and extracts the location of the last rocket before Ryker dies. Meanwhile, with great reluctance, the president approves of the airstrike.

Driven to insanity, Fry and Darrow decide to fire the last rocket and destroy San Francisco. Cale heads for the tower where the rocket is while Morse takes out the remaining mercenaries. Darrow pursues Cale, who has already disarmed the rocket before firing it straight it Darrow, launching him through a window. Under fire, Cale runs with the pearls from the rocket while Fry chases him and engages him in a brutal fist fight, eventually pinning him down and beginning to choke him. Cale shoves one of the loose pearls into Fry's mouth and punches him, breaking it and killing Fry. He then injects himself with an antidote, saving himself before lighting two flares to inform the incoming squadron not to drop the bombs. Although one of the bombs are dropped, it hits the back of the island and no one is harmed, although Cale falls into the water where Morse rescues him. Over the radio, Cale informs the FBI that the hostages survived by that Morse was killed. He then gives Morse the location of some money and clothes he stashed in a hotel and his daughter's address. As the film ends, Morse, now a free man, is reuntied with his daughter, and Cale marries Rachel.

Cast
Joseph Gordon Levitt - Jack Cale

Harrison Ford - Jacob Morse

Bruce Willis - Joseph Ryker

Crispin Glover - Captain Fry

Michael Clarke Duncan - Captain Darrow

Zooey Deschanel - Rachel

William H. Macy - The President