One of the worst movies of the year? Yes, it is. But the twist is, Paul Walker is not the reason. In fact, he's the best thing in this movie. How'dya like them apples?
You see, Running Scared is not the kind of bad movie that is incompetently made, nor the dumb repetitive drivel such as current Van Damme and Seagal movies. It's that whole new breed. You know, the kind of movie that disguises itself as the uber-cool edgy flick. Must be, with that Domino style cinematography and CSI like editing. It's the frat-boy kind of movie that expects you to turn red-faced and yell "Awesome!" when a guy gets shot in the crotch. You get the idea.
It's a dark, bloody, violent, angsty, gritty tale of gangsters, corrupt cops and whores. I usually don't mind that, but when a movie tries so hard to be offensive you can't help but laugh at the silliness, then you have a rotten egg in your hand. Running Scared is a movie about a man (Paul Walker) and his gritty tale in trying to recover a small boy (Cameron Bright) with a marked gun, encountering many seedy characters in one night, who are all apparently connected by coincidences. More Go than Pulp Fiction. In his quest to make what he calls the film that would bring back the hard R films, director Wayne Kramer pulled every trick out of the "Offending People For Dummies" book and crammed them into a two-hour time slot. Violence, drugs, full frontal nudity, close ups of women's snatch, cunnilingus, unabashed patriotism, racist remarks, blasphemy, homophobic remarks, various brutal misogyny, child killings, pedophilia, and of course, more swear words than a drunk Tony Montana. At one point in the movie when things got "sick and twisted", as they claim (it involves a perverted married couple, video cameras, and kidnapped little boys), I burst out laughing because of how ridiculous the plot had steered into. The film obviously had no problems with its own story being sidetracked. During this sequence, Paul Walker's character is nowhere to be seen, and the gun/mafia angle is scrapped. Instead we get a meaningless subplot that serves no other purpose than to add about 10 minutes more sick stuff into the film. Anything for that edgy appeal, eh?
This film amazingly took the term "twist and turns at every corner" a little too literally. The story is full of twists and surprises, all right, and a lot of them might catch you off guard -- but please don't credit it to the cleverness of the script. If a big friggin' alien warcraft appears in the middle of A Streetcar Named Desire, it would be surprising as all get out, but that doesn't mean that it's good. Running Scared is full of turn of events that don't really make any sense. Many times, you'll either scowl in confusion or shake your head chuckling. As if ridiculous surprises throughout the movie are not enough, it actually had the gall to spin 3 or 4 twists at the end in the span of less than 15 minutes. It got tiring really, really fast.
As I mentioned before, Paul Walker is actually the best thing in this, though that doesn't really say much. I expected a halfway fun bloody action flick with a rousingly bad performance by Walker. What I got was a surprisingly okay acting job in a horrendous film that tries too hard. I was amused when Paul Walker confessed that this was the first film where he really tried as an actor. He had no passion for his previous efforts, and said he got those jobs just because he's cute enough. This role is a true departure for him, to be honest. No smiling, man perm, beach boy Walker here. What you get is a skin-headed, foul mouthed, filthy, violent, absolute wreck of a man with a Jersey accent. According to the director, it's how Walker really is. "He's a guy who you have to drag out of a bar fight", Wayne Kramer said. I believe it. Meaning: Walker's only decent performance is when he's playing himself.
To sum the film up in a sentence... Imagine a plot by Guy Ritchie being directed by Tony Scott, catered to the Boondock Saints audience. That's pretty much what Running Scared is.
"Running Scared" opens February 24, 2006 and is rated R. Action, Crime, Drama. Written and directed by Wayne Kramer. Starring Cameron Bright, Chazz Palminteri, John Noble, Johnny Messner, Paul Walker, Vera Farmiga.
