Alright, I'm admitting a couple things to start: It looks good. The cinematographer did just fine. Some of the action works very well. Mobsters and dirty cops blow the crap out of each other and its fairly exciting. The fact that morality is pretty much absent for much of the film was also somewhat refreshing. BUT, then come plot, acting, tone, plot, casting, plot...
Anyone who's seen the previews knows that Walker plays a basically good dude who's in the mafia, has a family, and has to get rid of a gun used to kill a cop, but loses it "Tommy used it to burn a dirty cop. If they find it, I'm dead." The gun has been stolen by Walker's son's best friend Oleg (played by the wooden and ever irritating Cameron Bright of "Godsend" and "Ultraviolet" who I think is only in films because he has creepy eyes) who tries to kill his abusive daddy with it and then takes off. So, everybody's after the kid with the gun and there's complications involving the Russian mafia. From there we have young Oleg getting mixed up in every corner of the world of crime and sleaze. Meanwhile Paul Walker has to try and enlist the help of his son while avoiding arrest/death.
Sounds like it could be a pretty good flick, right? It's not. For starters, despite the absurdity of some of what Walker and Bright get into, the film never recognizes any of the humor of its situations. Emotional manipulation will only carry you so far. After pushing the viewer through all kinds of agonies and suspenses, for two hours without much pause, what is meant to be terror just starts to become hilarity. So much happens in the last half that one starts to forget the core plot exists in the first place. The ending is all Hollywood with a twist that renders the whole movie pointless (much like the twists in {"The Life of David Gale" and "Basic") and more sap than Canada. If they realized how silly it all was they could have had something not unlike "Pulp Fiction" on their hands, but because they expect you to stay perched at the edge of your seat for two hours, long after you've tired of the characters, it comes closer to something you'd find in the straight-to-video action section back around 1996.
The movie is jumpy. It frequently rewinds to make sure the slower viewers (I'm guessing there are more and more of those nowadays) don't miss details that were obvious to start with. Much of the jumpiness seems to be for its own sake, best displayed in a closeup on a "Caution: Wet Floor" sign which shakes and cuts three times on the same image. Oleg's adventures continue not for the sake of drama, but seemingly for that of filmmakers ADD. When it seems they've run out of suspenseful things to do with him, the boy is suddenly abducted by a couple of child molesters who have nothing to do with the mob, the gun, or believable reality. Yes, there are child rapists/murderers in the world, but with ultra-secure nursery/fantasy apartments? Not too many, I'm guessing.
On top of all this, the writers must have felt their picture wasn't dirty enough, because the gratuitous language really crosses a line. I don't have any problem with a film having swearing in it, but "Running Scared" has a bunch of white gangsters calling each other the "f-word" (not the four letter one) and the "n-word"? There's something basically wrong with that.
If ever you watch it, stick around for the incredibly over-the-top end titles sequence. It is literally a cartoon parody of the film, albeit unconsciously.
Anyone who's seen the previews knows that Walker plays a basically good dude who's in the mafia, has a family, and has to get rid of a gun used to kill a cop, but loses it "Tommy used it to burn a dirty cop. If they find it, I'm dead." The gun has been stolen by Walker's son's best friend Oleg (played by the wooden and ever irritating Cameron Bright of "Godsend" and "Ultraviolet" who I think is only in films because he has creepy eyes) who tries to kill his abusive daddy with it and then takes off. So, everybody's after the kid with the gun and there's complications involving the Russian mafia. From there we have young Oleg getting mixed up in every corner of the world of crime and sleaze. Meanwhile Paul Walker has to try and enlist the help of his son while avoiding arrest/death.
Sounds like it could be a pretty good flick, right? It's not. For starters, despite the absurdity of some of what Walker and Bright get into, the film never recognizes any of the humor of its situations. Emotional manipulation will only carry you so far. After pushing the viewer through all kinds of agonies and suspenses, for two hours without much pause, what is meant to be terror just starts to become hilarity. So much happens in the last half that one starts to forget the core plot exists in the first place. The ending is all Hollywood with a twist that renders the whole movie pointless (much like the twists in {"The Life of David Gale" and "Basic") and more sap than Canada. If they realized how silly it all was they could have had something not unlike "Pulp Fiction" on their hands, but because they expect you to stay perched at the edge of your seat for two hours, long after you've tired of the characters, it comes closer to something you'd find in the straight-to-video action section back around 1996.
The movie is jumpy. It frequently rewinds to make sure the slower viewers (I'm guessing there are more and more of those nowadays) don't miss details that were obvious to start with. Much of the jumpiness seems to be for its own sake, best displayed in a closeup on a "Caution: Wet Floor" sign which shakes and cuts three times on the same image. Oleg's adventures continue not for the sake of drama, but seemingly for that of filmmakers ADD. When it seems they've run out of suspenseful things to do with him, the boy is suddenly abducted by a couple of child molesters who have nothing to do with the mob, the gun, or believable reality. Yes, there are child rapists/murderers in the world, but with ultra-secure nursery/fantasy apartments? Not too many, I'm guessing.
On top of all this, the writers must have felt their picture wasn't dirty enough, because the gratuitous language really crosses a line. I don't have any problem with a film having swearing in it, but "Running Scared" has a bunch of white gangsters calling each other the "f-word" (not the four letter one) and the "n-word"? There's something basically wrong with that.
If ever you watch it, stick around for the incredibly over-the-top end titles sequence. It is literally a cartoon parody of the film, albeit unconsciously.