After two hours, I emerged from the theater disoriented, my heart pounding like I'd run a mile and wishing I could get a full body massage -- watching Running Scared was just as taxing on my senses as strenuous physical activity. The first scene sets the stage for the fast-paced action of the rest of the film. Mass bloodshed and jumpy cinematography keep the film interesting and the audience queasy.
As low-level mobster Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) tries to clean up a botched drug deal that kills a dirty cop, he creates more problems than he solves. He fails to immediately dispose of the murder weapon, and it ends up in the hands of his son's 10-year-old playmate, Oleg. Oleg (Cameron Bright) ends up shooting his abusive stepfather and fleeing, leaving Joey to track down the gun before the cops and his fellow mobsters figure out what happened.
While Joey bumbles around, screaming curse words at every dead-end trail he follows, it's Oleg who has the worst day ever. He gets held hostage by a homeless guy, befriends a prostitute and becomes the number-one enemy of a pimp before Joey can find him. As Oleg is exposed to violence time after time, it's clear he's going to have psychological baggage for years to come.
But, I couldn't dwell too much on Oleg when I was preoccupied with my own head-tripping situation. Gun shots rang out so much that I became desensitized to loud noises, although never really grew accustomed to the jarring cuts and the color changes from scene to scene. One moment I was witness to a sepia-toned mob gathering scene and the next, I was watching mass murder on an ice hockey rink filmed under black light. Sometimes the audience is pulled out of the story entirely by a mid-scene shot shown as a frame from an old movie projector or some slow-motion shot of a gruesome event. These techniques create an out-of-body experience that both distances the audience from the story and heightens the emotional suspense.
You could, however, say that the use of these cinematic elements could be a cover-up for the film's shortcomings. Some characters, though intimately connected to the main characters, are abandoned mid-film and lost somewhere in the midst of blood and gore. One character meets her demise rather dramatically, but the consequences of her death are never really explored. This treatment suggested she was a bland, disposable character only present to provide some small background story and left me wondering why time was spent introducing her in the first place.
Other characters lose their defining traits in the midst of the chaos. Oleg, depicted as a child with severe asthma at the beginning of the film, miraculously recovers from this condition before the last third of the movie.
Oleg also helps usher in several lines moviegoers have heard before.
"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry I missed," Oleg says to his stepfather, in a classic apology psych-out. Only the pimp can come up with a more inappropriate, clichéd line, rattling off a "Say hello to my little friend," as he points a gun at Oleg.
These lines might be considered light moments in the film, but they ultimately help create a cheesy undertone that only grows more and more annoying as the movie progresses. By the time the last twists to the plot are revealed -- some of them predictable and some plucked out of thin air -- I managed to roll my eyes in vague disgust, even as the rest of my body trembled in shock from the multiple bloodbaths I just witnessed.
In the end, I was just happy to be able to breathe normally again and see sunlight after a film that was so dark and twisted.
If you're not concerned about loopholes in plot or mediocre acting and just want to see ludicrous amounts of violence or some artistic cinematography, then Running Scared will satisfy you.
Good luck if you decide to see it -- I'll still be in my bed recuperating.
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