RUNNING SCARED Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
New Line Cinema
Grade: C
Directed by: Wayne Kramer
Written by: Wayne Kramer
Cast: Paul Walker, Vera Farmica, Cameron Bright, Chazz Palminteri
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 2/21/06
Opens: February 24, 2006 When Shakespeare’s King Lear bellows and howls into the storm, having stupidly lost his kingdom and the love of two of his daughters, you can’t blame the audience for sitting up and feeling both sympathy and empathy for this forlorn man, once great, now a shadow of his former self. That the crying into the night is the tragedy’s punctuation rather than just another melodramatic moment out of a cacophony of shouts and murmurs is what gives this climactic moment its visceral power. By contrast, Wayne Kramer’s “Running Scared” is so noisy, shamelessly and brazenly vulgar with scarcely a letup,, that there is no moment throughout the two-hour melodrama that stands apart as its climactic point. When Joey Gazelle cries like Lear about two-thirds into the movie, James Whitaker’s camera pulling up and away, Joey’s enormous pain scarcely registers in the benumbed audience, as Mark Isham’s omnipresent soundtrack and Wayne Kramer’s unsubtle direction presents this moment as just another in-your-face event in a movie that has an abundance of such actions. Of course no one goes to “Running Scared” expecting to see a cinematic representation of a Shakespearean tragedy. Yet Kramer directs as though he, and not just a ten-year-old in the cast, is afflicted with attention deficit disorder. Watch the adolescents line up to cheer some killings of the more egregiously evil people who populate the screen. We don’t wonder that they have trouble listening to their English teacher recite Robert Frost’s poetry in Anytown High School, USA. At the story’s center is Paul Walker who, despite his two-day beard and closely shaved head comes across more like Gerry Shepherd, lover of dogs in Frank Marshall’s “Eight Below” than like a low-level member of the mob in Wayne Kramer’s “Running Scared.” Just image the thirty-two year old heartthrob cursing at the dogs, four f-words in each sentences, rather than simply ordering them to mush. He’s running scared this time because he has ignored the Perello gang’s order to dispose of a gun used to kill a corrupt cop, thereby putting the Grimley, New Jersey wiseguys in danger of prosecution. (We find out his motive in keeping the gun toward the conclusion of the picture.) When ten-year-old Oleg Yugorsky, a friend of Joey’s son Nicky (Alex Neuberger), finds the hidden gun and uses it to wound his abusive stepfather, Anzor (Karel Roden), the Perello gang is out to do in the allegedly incompetent Joey. The story is told not through Joey’s eyes but through those of young Oleg, who flees, running into an assortment of low-lifes, some of whom are determined to waste the boy as well as his best pal’s dad.The most amusing one involves his adventure with a pair of pervs who kidnap little ones for use in kidporn videos. (Kramer, who likens “Running Scared” to some of Grimm’s fairy tales, states in the production notes that he makes references to several of scary legends throughout the picture, its characters showing up as caricatures during the final credits. If you can spot these allusions, including at least one from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” you’re a better than I.) With half of the New Jersey town’s chasing after the boy–his John-Wayne-loving, drug addicted stepdad Anzor, Frankie Perello (Arthur J. Nascarella), and corrupt Detective Rydell (Chazz Palminteri), Joey and his wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga) and their son spend the night looking for the understandably frightened lad. The movie embraces one explosion, shots by guns of various dimensions, a liberal use of the f-word as though this makes the characters even scarier, a din of bullets, and one might imagine enough volume to cause neighboring pizza house, midtown Hilton hotel, and baked pretzel store within a block of the AMC Empire theater to hear much of the noise free of charge. “Running Scared, shot mostly in Prague to represent suburban New Jersey (!)” is the sort of movie that allows us in the audience to ignore plot holes, stereotypical dialogue and characters, and the very story it\self in favor of one climactic moment after another, some of which could bring its targeted movie audience to its feet cheering. In order words, to coin another cliche, the pic is a ride, one which will impress the audience for which it is meant, and by that, we don’t mean the critical establishment. Rated R. 119 minutes © 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
