If Young Rock is Dwayne Johnson’s campaign launch, it’s close to genius - 29th April 2021

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Ten-year-old Dwayne Johnson (Adrian Groulx) with the Wild Samoans (John Tui and Fasi Amosa, mother Ata (Stacey Leilua) and father Rocky (Joseph Lee Anderson) in Young Rock. CREDIT: MARK TAYLOR

By Karl Quinn

YOUNG ROCK, Fox Showcase

***

I suspect Young Rock may be guilty of breaching political advertising rules. But if so, it’s hardly hiding the fact.

This 11-part comic-biopic-pastiche (of which the first six have been made available for preview) draws from real incidents in the life of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but starts from a fictional premise: it’s a decade or so from now and he’s running for president in 2032.

It’s a neat framing device. Each episode opens and closes with The Rock being interviewed about the forces and experiences that shaped him. Often it’s Randall Park in the big chair playing himself; a decade from now, he has traded his comedic-actor schtick for a role as a talk show host, a scenario entirely in keeping with the show’s central concern with reinvention.

Filmed in Australia during the COVID lockdown, Young Rock is sepia-toned, set in four time periods (more or less) – around 1982, 1987, the early 1990s and 2030-something – and might be insufferable in its “remember, kids, do as I say, not as I did” moralising if it didn’t have the saving grace of never taking itself too seriously. There are life lessons, but there are gags too. How could there not be when so much of it is set in the world of pro wrestling?

Johnson is played by three different actors: Adrian Groulx as a 10-year-old; Bradley Constant as a 15-year-old; and Uli Latukefu (an Australian of Tongan descent) as a young man. Plus there’s Johnson himself.

The cast is full of Australians and New Zealanders but the setting is Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Miami – wherever wrestling took The Rock’s father Rocky (Joseph Lee Anderson) and his wife Ata (Stacey Leilua). The sport laid the foundation for The Rock’s career as the world’s highest-earning movie star, but for Rocky – in this telling at least – existence was only fleetingly more than hand to mouth.

Tonally, it’s a bit like The Wonder Years with a dash of Cosby. Visually, it echoes Good Times and Family Ties. Above all, though, Young Rock feels like a platform for a genuine presidential campaign.

The Rock first indicated he was giving thought to that in 2018. Asked by Stephen Colbert if he was serious about a tilt at the White House, he said “absolutely”, but added he wasn’t “delusional”. “You know what it is, I need that thing ... experience.”

Last June, as America teetered on the brink of civil war, he posted a video message to his 15 million followers on Twitter in which he decried the lack of leadership shown by Donald Trump. “As we continue to wait for that leader to emerge,” he said, “we must become that leader we are looking for.”

In a country that has made a B-actor (Ronald Reagan) and a reality TV star (Donald Trump) president, there’s no reason to think Johnson couldn’t end up in the White House. He’d certainly be better than either of those two, though what would we call him? President Rock?

The series, produced by Johnson and his wife Dany Garcia, airs lots of skeletons as if to clear the decks of future scandal. We see how little Dewey Johnson became The Rock by owning his mistakes, learning from them and using that knowledge as the foundation for unimaginable success. And we see that he did it all without (apparently) losing his compassion for others, or becoming an A-grade A-hole.

As a TV series, Young Rock is enjoyable enough. But as a campaign launch it is close to genius. All that’s missing is the disclaimer.

(The Sydney Morning Herald)