"Running Scared": Murder, mayhem and audience manipulation
Wayne Kramer's repellent little thriller "Running Scared" is two hours long, but if you removed every word that I can't repeat in this paper, it'd probably be about 20 minutes. Paul Walker, as unfortunate mob flunky Joey Gazelle, uses the F-word repeatedly in every sentence, and sometimes just stands still and shrieks it to the skies; it's as if he's auditioning for a David Mamet movie. This may well be how mobsters talk, and it's probably intended to make the normally mellow Walker seem like a tough guy, but it's just sloppy, lazy writing. You tune out Joey pretty quickly, but unfortunately there's nothing else in this movie to listen to, except the gunshots.
But there is much to look at: kids pointing guns at people, kids being threatened with knives, kids being beaten by pimps, a woman having her head bashed against the side of a car, men shooting each other in the crotch, a man biting another's ear off (in extreme close-up), countless guns and bullets and gallons of blood, some of which takes place in scenes so dimly lit that you can't tell who's shooting who. All of this is in service to an outlandish story that has nothing to say, except that mob flunkies really should keep their guns in places where kids can't get to them.
"Running Scared," with Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Karel Roden, Chazz Palminteri, Vera Farmiga, Alex Neuberger. Written and directed by Wayne Kramer. 119 minutes. Rated R for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content. Several theaters.
Kramer, whose 2003 Vegas noir "The Cooler" showed that he's perfectly capable of creating a film rich in character and atmosphere, appears to have fallen down some sort of violent-movie rabbit-hole here. The camera zooms and twitches and even turns upside-down, for no particular reason; bullets zing backward and forward and hang in the air, like a video game made large. There's little room for character in this fast-paced story: Joey must race through the night in search of his 10-year-old neighbor Oleg (Cameron Bright), who has run off with a gun used in a cop shooting. Infinite complications ensue, and a lot of people get killed, most of them bad guys.
This would all be instantly dismissible, except for one factor that makes "Running Scared" stand out: There is a child at the center of this ultraviolent story, and the devices used to keep us on tenterhooks regarding his survival are appallingly manipulative. For example, after young Oleg has fled the scary homeless drug dealer and fought off the violent pimp, he jumps into the back of a random van while trying to escape his abusive meth-addicted Russian-mob-connected stepfather — and it turns out to be a van owned by a pair of child pornographers. And did I mention that the kid has asthma?
Bright, who's made creepy films into something of a specialty (he's starred in "Birth," "Godsend" and "The Butterfly Effect," among others), is a sullen-looking child actor with intense, focused eyes; you get the feeling this kid could stare down a cobra, if need be. But surely there are better things for a person his age to be doing — and better things for people of any age to be watching.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com