Kurt Russell was kind of a wimp in this...

Thats cos he's playing "normal guy" , not special forces bandit badass

Maybe this's the reason he take the role.

he was just your average bloke in this flick & it really works

I wholeheartedly disagree. Dude persevered through some truly challenging situations. Wimp he was not.

On the wiki page it states that some jo blow critic complained that he "didn't act angry enough", or basically bad ass enough, for a man desperate to find his wife. He WAS a man desperate to find his wife. But he wasn't some former soldier or something. He was (in the script's backstory), a former photographer. He was essentially a "yuppy" who had never dealt with anything like this in his life.

If it were me, yeah, I'd be furious that someone took my wife. But I'd be more terrified (for her) than angry. And the point of his character, and the story being told, was not for him to become some vengeful badass. It was for a regular guy, to somehow just barely survive a ridiculous/extreme situation, and somehow come out on top, with himself and wife intact.

And frankly, even though they accomplished that, he still has many "pretty ridiculous and bad ass" moments for a regular joe, like climbing around on a moving (and later falling) truck, stabbing and beating his kidnapper, etc.

But this film wasn't supposed to be an action flick, or even a revenge flick. It played out how it should have, for the most part.

He played a similar character in Unlawful Entry. I try to remember that lots of actors are capable of playing different kinds of roles if given the opportunity, which is why so many dislike finding themselves typecast.

I saw him as pretty badass. He was assertive with finding his wife and wouldn't take no for an answer. The stuff with the guy duck everything after that to the truck seat was all badass, and he shows no-nonsense badassery in every scene after.