Running Scared Movie Review:


Kramer shifts from the drama of The Cooler to all-out action here, but he makes the same mistakes as a filmmaker. Despite strong performances and an intriguing idea, it's clumsily overwritten, straining badly to be a complex thriller but only generating small moments of believability.

Joey (Walker) works for a New Jersey crime family. When a drug deal goes gruesomely wrong, Joey's job is to get rid of an incriminating gun. But his son Nicky (Neuberger) sees the hiding place. As does Nicky's best friend Oleg (Bright), who steals it to shoot his violent stepdad (Roden). Suddenly it's the Italian versus the Russians. Stir in a tenacious cop (Palminteri) and Joey's tough wife (Farmiga) and it's going to be a long night as the gun passes from hand to hand.

Visually, the film is a whizzy and tricky, with an extreme colour palette, swooping camera work and flashy editing. All of this perfectly matches the script's whizzy trickery, although it also exposes the story's flaws. The dialog is awash with cornball sermons and obvious moralising, while the plot relies on cliches, conveniences and coincidences, plus excessive gore and gratuitous nudity. No matter how showy Kramer gets as a director, we can see that there's nothing much to this film.

So it's up to the cast to engage us, and Walker is extremely watchable at the centre of the storm. He makes Joey both shady and sleazy, but clearly not evil, and his impossible task to get the gun before the cops or either mob find it is truly gripping. Farmiga and the boys are also especially strong, drawing us into their individual odysseys, even when the film takes some deranged side trips, such as the wacky/scary kiddie snuff porn interlude.

The main problem is that Kramer seems to have made up this script on the hoof as a kind of homage to The Sopranos and Todd Solondz, both of which, uncoincidentally, also come from New Jersey. Even as he manages to compose a startling, twisty, wrenching final sequence, the clunky storytelling undermines any real tension we might feel.



Rich Cline

Director Wayne Kramer, who also directed the overly brilliant “The Cooler”, returns to the grit of the underworld with his latest film “Running Scared”.

Paul Walker stars as Joey Gazelle, a low-ranked thug whose only job for the mob is to hide their guns after a hit so they can’t be traced. One night, Joey’s son’s friend, Oleg (Cameron Bright) steals one of the hidden guns and shoots his abusive stepfather (John Noble).

A police investigation ensues and Joey tries to thwart the case by disturbing the evidence. Everything goes pretty well until Joey realizes that Oleg has escaped with the gun. The mob, the police and now Joey are all after the same gun. Joey has to find the gun before the mob or his life and his families could be forfeit. Can Joey do it in time?

The plot of the film is quite intense and the film has some really nice camera shots and some really well photographed scenes. A lot of the interesting shots are done with interesting camera angles and first-person perspective which gives the film a unique feel. The film’s opening sequence is a lot of fun and reminded me some of the sequence from last year’s “Hostage”.

I also have to say that I liked the performance of Paul Walker and Vera Farmigna who played his wife. Both are very good in their roles. I remember Farmigna from the short-lived Fox series, Roar from 1997 which starred Heath Ledger.

The problems I had with the film were the overly graphic scenes, some plot angles that were completely ludicrous and the film’s length. This film goes on about 20-30 minutes to long.

One scene that I felt was absolutely ludicrous was a scene involving a pedophile couple who captures Oleg and plan to use him in an inappropriate video. It’s sick, disturbing and unnecessary. I was also quite appalled to see the often brilliant actress Elisabeth Mitchell as the pedophile wife. I have to hand it to the actress that’s quite a departure.

I really liked the plot and the two leads but it really needed some work on subplots, supporting characters and length.

(3 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Running Scared and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.