Professional football players are real life versions of the action heroes that we see on the movie screen. Does that translate to actual action movies? One of the best in the NFL is now making his play for the silver screen. Rob Gronkowski is on his way to the Super Bowl again (well, his team is, anyway... Gronk's injured), but before he gets there, his acting debut as an action hero will be in the new film American Violence. Check out one of Gronk's big action scenes below.
American Violence stars Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau as a man on death row and Denise Richards as a psychologist trying to understand where his violent tendencies come from. Apparently, investigating where the man's violence comes from creates violence in its own right as the scene we have here shows Emma Rigby coming under attack. Luckily, she got one of the best players in the NFL around to come to her defense. Rob Gronkowski, comes out of his car and starts taking guys down left and right in order to protect her.
As action scenes go, this is far from the worst we've ever seen. It's brief and simple but we see Rob Gronkowski handle a gun and do some physical work and it all comes together pretty well. Maybe there's a future for Gronk after football.
Because football players are so physically impressive movies have always looked at them for potential roles, primarily in the action genre. Jim Brown was one of The Dirty Dozen way back in 1967 and Bubba Smith had a solid career in Hollywood in the Police Academy movies. Howie Long tried to be a leading man in his own action film, Firestorm, which was god awful, but we're not sure Long was entirely to blame for that.
This isn't Rob Gronkowski's only outing on the big screen this year. He'll also have a role playing the part of Officer Whedon in a thriller titled You Can't Have It which will be released in March. The role appears to be a prominent one as Gronk is front and center on the poster. Exactly how big his role in American Violence will be isn't entirely clear. His name comes fairly low on the credit list, so it's probably nothing major. That's ok. Starting small isn't a bad thing. Dwayne Johnson started out with a glorified cameo as The Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns. In the long run, things worked out for him.
What do you think? Is Rob Gronkowski the next big action star? Is the buddy cop movie with Gronk and The Rock a foregone conclusion? Let us know what you think. American Violence debuts in theaters and VOD on February 3. Gronk's team, the New England Patriots, takes on the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI on February 5.
