Melissa Eisele
Pulse Reporter
"Running Scared" is one of those movies that people should avoid like a toilet seat in a seedy rest stop at 2 a.m.
Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is a small-time mob muscle. During a drug
sale gone wrong, a third party comes in to take everything; drugs and
money. A gun fight occurs, and the only ones left standing are Joey and
his two partners. It turns out that the third party was actually dirty
cops.
While making a run for it, Joey is given the assignment to dispose of
the guns used to kill the cops, and he is told not to screw it up,
though stronger - more clichÇ - language was used because this is,
after all, a Walker movie.
Joey goes home and hides the guns in a hiding place full of similar
weapons, cash and money. Too bad his son, Nicky (Alex Neuberger) and
his best friend, Oleg (Cameron Bright), were hiding and saw where the
weapons were put.
Tired of his stepfather's abuse, Oleg steals one of the guns to shoot
him, but he only hits his stepfather in the shoulder. Oleg goes on the
run with the gun.
Joey has to find the gun and Oleg before the dirty cops, the Russian mob or his own organization finds him and kills them both.
On paper, it looks mediocre. On big screen, it looks far less than
mediocre. Once Oleg goes missing, the film becomes a mess of ridiculous
subplots and cartoonish characters.
At this point, "Running Scared" is less about Joey finding Oleg and the
gun and more about the misadventures of Oleg and his shiny gun. First
Oleg is nearly killed by a creepy homeless guy, and then he saves a
prostitute from her pimp.
If it wasn't so violent, it could almost be a Saturday morning cartoon.
Things become more bizarre when Oleg and the gun separate. Oleg is
picked up by bizarre child molesting killers who seem like the parents
on "The Brady Bunch." All the scenes with them felt like the
moviemakers were tripping and needed to make longer the movie longer.
But it was great when Joey's wife came to save the day and blow away
the freaky parents.
The gun goes on an odyssey through the hands of about five people, and
chasing it down, Joey is always one step behind. It finally ends up
with the pimp from which Oleg saved the prostitute. Isn't it a small
world?
"Running Scared" comes full circle very well. The two main mob leaders
meet with everyone involved at hockey rink. They conclude that it's
Joey fault and begin torturing him by having one of the players do slap
shots to Joey's face with a hot pink puck in the rink lit by a black
light because what is a mob movie without black light hockey torture?
Confused? Imagine being there. Getting this much out of this horrendous
film through the excessive cursing is amazing. The characters would
have probably sounded like cavemen had it not been for the added foul
language.
In the end, what seems like a last minute addition from the filmmakers
does little to redeem "Running Scared." It presents a shiny, happy
ending in movie that showed only the scummiest side of man.
That would have been fine if the movie didn't stumble along for two
hours. The longer "Running Scared" persisted to present absurd factors
into the plot, the more the audience members wanted to end the pain
anyway they can.
Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Starring: Paul Walker, Vera Farmiga and Cameron Bright
Rated: R
Running time: 122 minutes
1 Gus head out of 4
