The Rock (1996)
12-month trend
12-month trend
Monthly article views
2025-09 to 2026-08
A former SAS captain and an FBI chemist must team up to disarm a deadly cache of chemical weapons on Alcatraz Island.
The story
A rogue group of Force Recon Marines, led by a disillusioned Brigadier General, seizes control of the former prison on Alcatraz Island after stealing 15 rockets filled with lethal VX gas. They take hostages and demand $100 million from the government, threatening to launch the rockets into the San Francisco Bay Area within 72 hours. To counter the threat, the government recruits an FBI chemical weapons specialist and a former British SAS Captain—the only man to ever escape Alcatraz—to infiltrate the island's tunnel system and disarm the weapons before the deadline expires.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After seizing Alcatraz and threatening the San Francisco Bay Area with VX gas, a rogue Marine unit led by General Hummel demands a ransom. The FBI and military form a team including specialist Dr. Stanley Goodspeed and former SAS operative John Mason to infiltrate the island. During the mission, the team is ambushed, and several members are killed. Mason and Goodspeed manage to evade the Marines and begin working to disable the rockets. As the deadline nears, a mutiny occurs among the Marines; Hummel is mortally wounded but reveals the location of the final rocket. The government prepares an airstrike to destroy the island, but Goodspeed and Mason manage to neutralize the remaining threats and signal the strike to be aborted. In the aftermath, Goodspeed tells Mason he was 'killed' in the explosion to protect him from the government, while Mason is left to find the hidden microfilm in Kansas.
- First release year
- 1996
- Runtime (minutes)
- 136
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Michael Bay
- Cast and characters
- Sean Connery · John Mason; Nicolas Cage · Dr. Stanley Goodspeed; Ed Harris · Francis Hummel; Michael Biehn · not specified; William Forsythe · not specified
- Genres
- action; thriller
- Tone and mood
- action-packed; tense
- Premise and plot tags
- buddy film; prison film; bomb disposal; hostage situation
- Content notes
- violence
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews and was a commercial success, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 1996.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 76% · scale: percentage · review count: 137; Metacritic · score: 58 · scale: 100 · review count: 24
- Awards and nominations
- Best On-Screen Duo · MTV Movie Awards · won
- Production trivia
- The film was remade in India in 2003 as Qayamat: City Under Threat.; The film was the basis for false descriptions of the Iraqi chemical weapons program.; Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally cast as Goodspeed but turned the role down.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
Your lists
Loading your lists…