On Paul Walker's Internet Movie Database biography, under the "trivia" headline, it says, "He doesn't like to watch himself on screen."
Seems Walker has something in common with those who've suffered through "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "Into the Blue."
With "Running Scared," the listless performer has earned a nickname: SleepWalker. The same moniker would also apply, at least in this film, to writer/director Wayne Kramer, who came up with the indie smash "The Cooler" (2003), but now cashes in for his official big-budget sellout.
"The Cooler," a savvy gambling drama, was smart, deep, and exciting — everything "Running Scared" isn't.
The plot of "Running Scared," involving gangland New Joisey hysterics, has all the logic and transitional ease of a Pokémon-style card game played by 5-year-olds who don't understand the rules, so they make up their own as they go.
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Kramer tosses around his stock characters, including Russian Mobster, Italian Mobster, Dirty Cop, Filthy Pimp and Girl With Gun, hoping that with enough bang, pop and bare breasts, the audience won't care that none of it makes sense.
The morass is an utter waste of cinematographer Jim Whitaker, whose splashy, inventive stylings prop up the film with a skill and intensity it doesn't deserve. His wily camera follows stray bullets through walls, soars above a sinful city with mighty majesty and careens down dark alleys at breakneck speeds.
Everything else in "Running Scared" is as generic as its title.
Walker plays Joey Gazelle, a tough-talking thug who makes his introduction by shooting an enemy in the testicles. Following the scene, the first of many unexplained gunbattles, Joey goes home and treats his beleaguered wife, Teresa (Vera Farmiga), as though she were a hooker he met for a quick liaison inside a Meadowlands parking garage. After fighting off his sexual advances in the laundry room, Teresa finishes dinner and sends her son's friend home. The family, complete with drooling grampa, shares a bowl of spaghetti and barely avoids a dessert of hot lead.
Joey marches across the street to the source of the shootings, a Russian mobster/meth dealer, 'cause no one shoots at Joey G's house and gets away with it. He finds out the shooter is none other than 10-year-old Oleg (Cameron Bright), the very boy whom Teresa just sent home. Oleg is on the run with a shiny gun that Joey figures could tie him to a crime syndicate, so he sets out to track him down. At this point the review will cease with the plot description, not out of respect for avoiding spoilers, but because it's not understandable.
Villains pop up from behind corners as randomly as targets in a shooting gallery. Chazz Palminteri is among the most sinister, on-the-take Detective Rydell. Threatening a mobster, Rydell likens law enforcement to the largest and dirtiest of mobs.
Russian and Italian thugs step to the forefront, and at times they're chasing after Joey, or Oleg, or when they're together, both of them. There are also several scenes in which Joey and Oleg walk alone and together in broad streetlight unaccosted by their presumed enemies, with little or no explanation given. And there are still more scenes in which Joey and Oleg make instant enemies with a jive-talking pimp or a greasy mechanic.
It all leads to a final showdown at a hockey rink, which gives new meaning to the term "sudden-death shootout." In most action films, the final guns-blazing bonanza would serve as the grand finale, but this movie just goes on and on afterward, until it can meander to an obligatory scene of happy survivors frolicking with a puppy and the American flag.
"Running Scared" is what savvy movie fans should be doing from theaters playing this.
review
Running Scared
*1/2
Rated: R for pervasive brutal violence and strong language, sexuality and drug content
Cast: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Chazz Palminteri
Writer/director: Wayne Kramer
Family call: It's violent and profane — not for kids.
Running time: 122 minutes
Opens Friday at: Park Place, El Con, Century Park, Foothills, Cinemark
