The Observer, March 3, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 19
Running Scared unintentionally hilarious
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Running Scared, starring Paul Walker and directed by Wayne Kramer, is a quick-moving crime drama centered around a gun used by some low-level mobsters to kill a dirty cop. Involving a pimp. And some pedophiles. And a John Wayne-obsessed Russian. And a hooker with a heart of gold, just for good measure.
The movie starts with a shoot-out over a drug deal gone wrong. Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is given the task of getting rid of the gun, which he hides in his basement where he finds his wife doing laundry and starts tearing off her clothes and performing graphic sexual acts. At this point, I thought the movie was off to a good start.
Unfortunately, Joey's son Nicky (Alex Neuberger) and Nicky's friend Oleg (Cameron Bright) find the gun that Joey has hidden, and Oleg takes it. While Joey and his family eat dinner, they hear gun shots next door. Joey grabs another gun (this movie is a veritable advertisement for gun control) from his stash and runs next door to save the day. To his surprise, Oleg has used the gun to shoot his abusive, meth lab-running stepfather Ivan (John Noble), the John Wayne-obsessed Russian.
Ivan describes the shooting and details the gun. Joey recognizes it as the one used to shoot the cops during the drug deal. So starts a mad dash around the state looking for Oleg and the gun. The rest of the movie traces the gun's path of destruction through the state and the bad luck of one little boy named Oleg.
A large part of Running Scared centers around the villains that Oleg meets who want or use his gun. The scenarios are unlikely at best, and suggest the use of heavy drugs while this script was being written.
However, the scenarios are entertaining in a slapstick, vaudeville kind of way. Running Scared is the Dude, Where's My Car? of dramas, except with meth and a gun instead of pot and a little yellow car. The fights are bloody and overdone, yet the ways in which the battles play out are creative and fresh. If you're expecting something realistic or insightful, this probably isn't the movie for you – watch purely for fun, and revel in the absurdity of today's cinema.
Because the scenes are so outlandish, it is impossible to predict what will happen next. Of course more misfortune will befall Oleg, but how? That uncertainty gives some thrill to the movie, and keeps your adrenaline pumping right along with the main characters. In a movie that would otherwise be too unbelievable to draw you into the characters, you find yourself nervous for them because you can't predict the script's next move.
Running Scared is a cross between a comic book and a video game. The film is garish, cartoonish, and delightfully entertaining. It's suspenseful, dramatic, and inadvertently hilarious – the movie takes itself so seriously that it's impossible for the audience to. Don't try to make all the connections and definitely don't try to guess what will happen next – you can't. It's just too weird.
