Running Scared Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)February 25th, 2006
RUNNING SCARED
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Hello, cheesy fun! With pimps, prostitutes and pedophilia, the way over the top RUNNING SCARED plays like an American version of LAYER CAKE, a British crime drama which played in the U.S. last year. As LAYER CAKE helped Daniel Craig cement his deal to be the next James Bond, RUNNING SCARED could convince skeptics like me that heartthrob Paul Walker can actually act. When given a script with more demands than making eyes with adorable pooches (EIGHT BELOW) or out-driving the local hot-rodders (the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise), Walker is able to demonstrate that he does have some acting chops after all. Like Franka Potente's Lola in RUN LOLA RUN, Walker's Joey Gazelle runs around like a mad man or a coke dealer who has sampled too much of his own product. And Walker as a bad guy, who would have thought?
Written and directed by THE COOLER's Wayne Kramer, RUNNING SCARED is a roller coaster of a thrill ride, fast paced and with blink-and-you-miss-'em twists aplenty. It will probably not surprise you to learn that Kramer's last script was for the almost as cheesy MINDHUNTERS. But MINDHUNTERS is sedate compared to the hyper-violent RUNNING SCARED. Like PULP FICTION, another film you'll be thinking of while watching this one, the film is quite funny.
Happening all during one high action, eighteen hour period, mainly at night, the plot concerns the search for a gun that could connect Joey and his Italian Mafia crew with the killing of a dirty cop during a big drug deal gone bad. So frantic that his brain appears in danger of exploding at any minute, Joey goes looking for Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright, the creepy kid in BIRTH). It seems that ten-year-old Oleg stole Joey's hot gun. Oleg used it to plug his old man, who is obsessed with The Duke -- you know, John Wayne. Oleg's father brews meth in his garage, which may blow up the neighborhood at any moment. Since Oleg's dad is connected to the Russian Mafia, you can see where some of the story has to be headed. Suffice it to say that, with two branches of the Mafia warring against each other, they are going to find a lot of imaginative ways to whack each other.
In the excellent supporting cast, none is better than Chazz Palminteri, who plays a detective hot on the case. The movie's funniest moment involves him and is a great take off on the "priceless" television ads.
So long as you don't make the mistake of thinking too hard and you just go with the flow, everything about the movie works beautifully, except for its length. It is a quarter of an hour or so too long. The camera work is great, as is the energetic editing. Finally, you don't want to miss the washing machine sex scene between Walker and Vera Farmiga, who plays his wife. In the surprising sex scene between William H. Macy and Maria Bello in THE COOLER, director Kramer proved that he has a gift for filming sex in a way that is fun, hot and believable. Here, working with a sexier male lead, Kramer is able to really turn up the heat. And speaking of heat, you may be sweating by the end of RUNNING SCARED, feeling like you've been running all of the way too.
RUNNING SCARED runs 2:02. It is rated R for "pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content" and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, February 24, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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