Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Running Scared (2005)

Director: Wayne Kramer

Average user rating
1 review

Movie review

From Time Out London

Where does slinkily sleazy end and inadvertently off-putting begin? It’s a question hanging over Wayne Kramer’s follow-up to ‘The Cooler’, a relentlessly excessive gangland thriller clearly channelling the stone-cold amorality of early-’70s crime flicks (‘Prime Cut’, say, or ‘Across 110th St’), but the writer-director’s penchant for extremes ultimately proves the film’s undoing. It starts with the bloodbath of a bungled drugs rendezvous, leaving mob underling Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker, trying hard) to dump a pistol which offed a dodgy cop. Which, of course, he doesn’t do, since he’s stashing weapons in his New Jersey garage as an insurance policy for his young family. Big mistake. Oleg (Cameron Bright), son of the abusive Russian immigrant next door, has had enough of his addled ex-Mafioso dad, shoots him with the very same piece, and disappears into the night.

The idea, presumably, is how we create our own hell through misguided good intentions or imprinting violent solutions on the impressionable young. Sadly, the dizzying plot soon loses track of such whys and wherefores in favour of the short-term buzz of another twist, while it’s hard to square underlying compassion with the callous brutality on show – by the time someone’s had their ear chewed off, we hardly bat an eyelid.

Most troubling, though, is the degree of gun-toting action that Oleg is exposed to and participates in, not to mention a cameo appearance by two sadistic child killers. With audiences jaded by the usual sex and splatter, do the filmmakers have no qualms about juicing up proceedings with edgy but troubling material which clearly needs more conscientious handling? Apparently not.

Author: TJ 2006-01-03 10:54:23

Time Out London Issue 1846: January 4-11 2005

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

  • Ruby said...
    Posted on Sep 05 2007 14:52 Beside the overly-dramatic ending... This movie was awesome! it kept me and everyone i've shown it to (at the very least 10 people) in suspense, up til the very end. Even most most cynical friend had a hard time tearing it apart.
    Report as inappropriate

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Running Scared

Cast & crew

Director: Wayne Kramer

Cast: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Chazz Palminteri, Johnny Messner, Michael Cudlitz, Alex Neuberger, Ivana Milicevic, John Noble, David Warshofsky full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers, Drama

Duration: 121 mins

Related articles


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.