Running Scared [2006]

Director Wayne Kramer's follow-up to his directorial debut (The Cooler) shows that he is a rising talent in Hollywood with a flair for drama and suspense that borders the line between reality and surrealism. Running Scared has such a gritty, washed out look right from the get-go that one starts to think it's a film lifted right out of the 70's. But that is only part of what Kramer does in creating a look and feel for Running Scared. Kramer actually uses every kind of trick in a director's book to give his film such an over-the-top sense that the audience really doesn't know what to expect just around the next dark corner.

Running Scared's first ten minutes sets up what the rest of the next two hours are going to be like. Kramer direct's this ten minutes like a man possessed. The direction and editing is frantic and frenetic. Some have said that it's all been done before by Tarantino, Woo and a dozen other action-stylists out of Hong Kong, but I disagree. Kramer's style owes alot more to the grandfather of excessive film violence and that's Sam Peckinpah. I'm not comparing Running Scared to Peckinpah's seminal classic The Wild Bunch but the pace and look of the chaotic shoot-out in the tiny apartment in the beginning brings to mind the opening and closing shoot-outs in that film. Kramer knows he's not making a social statement or even an intellectually relevant film. What he does know is that he wants to tell a fairy tale of one man's hectic day and all the craziness he has to go through during that day. And this is what Running Scared really has turned out to be. A fairy tale set in an modern, dank, urban landscape where our hero (though anti-hero is more like it) and the two kids in his life must travel a surreal place filled with mack-daddy pimps, hooker with a heart of gold, corrupt cops and even a pair of child pedophiles who also turn out to be husband and wife. Running Scared is a like Grimms fairy tale as seen and told in a modern setting.

The cast of actors Kramer has assembled all do a good job in populating this violent, profane modern fairy tale. I'd be the last to think that Paul Walker was an actor who had any talent, but his performance in Running Scared has given me pause to think that maybe its not him, but the projects he's been doing that's given him a bad reputation as an actor. Gone is the California surfer dude persona he seems to be saddled with in all his films. He actually inhabits the low-level mobster soldier he plays as Joey Gazelle. This film may not be his breakout performance but it will open up some eyes. The boy's got some skill he's never been able to show before. The other actor who makes a standout performance is one Cameron Bright who plays Oleg. The neighbor kid whose theft of a mob gun Joey is suppose to make disappear turns Joey's life upside down. Cameron's almost like Pinocchio in that its through him that we see all the crazy characters he runs across. It's a testament to Kramer's direction that he's able to get such good performances from Walker,Bright and the rest of the cast in a film that's as confusing, complicated and surreal as Running Scared.

Running Scared is a wonderful surprise of a film for 2006. It's an unabashed fun, thrilling urban fairy tale that goes for broke in everything it does. Wayne Kramer's direction shows that his very good work in filming The Cooler wasn't a fluke and one-time deal. This is a new director who has shown that he has the skills and talent to stay in the business. He's no Tarantino and surely not in the same league as Sam Peckinpah whose films this one owes alot to in style and feel, but he's making a name for himself as one who can do good work. Oh, Paul Walker does a good job in it as well. I highly recommend this to people who like their films to be fun, but at the same time to have some flash and style.

Wow, what a movie. 'Running Scared' is not to be confused with the 80's movie by the same title starring Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal. This is a completely different storyline, and there is no comedy involved whatsoever.

'Running Scared' is the tale of Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker), who handles weapons disposal for the illicit actions of his friends. But when a gun is used to eliminate a crooked cop, Joey treats it as casually as he treats all his charges, putting it in plastic and hiding it in his house. But this time, he is seen by his son Nicky and neighbor boy Oleg Yugorsky (Cameron Bright - The Butterfly Effect).

Oleg takes the gun and shoots his abusive stepfather Anzor (Expertly played by Karel Roden - The Bourne Supremacy, 15 Minutes, and Hellboy). Now, Joey not only has to find the gun, but protect Oleg and Nicky from being discovered by his mob connections, and still produce the gun for his benefactors.

This movie is a non-stop thriller, literally flowing from one tense moment to another without pause. It's definitely an "edge of your seat" movie. There doesn't seem to be one particular good guy in the entire film, everyone is seedy and foul of character. But when Joey's wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga - 15 Minutes, The Manchurian Candidate) confronts the child molesters, you will raise your hands above you head, clapping and cheering for the white trash woman.

Its not so much the shock level or any surprises that make this film so good as it is the tension level. The director managed to keep a high level of tension throughout the entire movie, which is a rare achievement. 'Running Scared' is a definite nail biter. Incredibly fast-paced, the tension makes the movie seem more graphic than it is. It's the intensity that will make you jumpy, not the graphics. It's worth a purchase. Enjoy!

I'm getting sick of marketing people, you know? Especially after having seen this movie I'm sick of how often they can misrepresent a product, CD, or (especially!) a film their trying to present. I understand it's a matter of telling people the information that would drive them into spending their money on a 2 hour or so experience, but in this particular case, they dropped the ball big time!

This trailers for this film made it appear as a garden variety action pic. Overtly violent and again without point. Imagine my shcck and awe (I'm using that term a lot more lately.) when I finally saw the film! It twists and turns with a gritty style of filmaking that actually calls back the films from the seventies, the dark crime films like French Connection, as upposed to other films who merely say that but don't deliever.

Paul Walker is just what he needs to be. Gritty, real, and whatever adjectives you wish to put to describe his manic performance. Playing a low level mobster with a loving family, he makes mistakes but goes out of his way to fix them. Cameron Bright, the young actor who plays Oleg is simply stunning. Vera Farmiga? Wayne Cramer is right. Her eyes are hypnotic. She is, as she does in her brilliant turn in The Departed, the moral center of the film.

Fantastic action, great dialouge, amazing camera work, fantastic story! How could they have messed it up? Leave that to the marketing people.