Running Scared (2006)

Next up in my little Paul Walker marathon is a thriller called Running Scared. I’m about to punch myself for taking so long to watch this one as well especially when its been sitting on those bargain shelves forever.  Now, do they actually deserve to be there? Lets check it out! By the way, unlike She’s All That, Paul Walker is the lead guy  here 🙂

Director: Wayne Kramer

Cast: Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Chazz Palminteri, Karel Roden, Johnny Messner, Alex Neuberger, John Noble

A low rank thug Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is asked to get rid of a gun that killed a group of corrupted cops.  However, he keeps it hidden away as his insurance policy instead until his son Nicky (Alex Neuberger) and his best friend Oleg (Cameron Bright) find it.  Oleg sneaks back to take it and in turn uses it to hurt his abusive father (Karel Roden).  When he runs away, Joey finds out and starts to run looking for Oleg and the gun before the cops and his boss finds out, but the chase goes further when the gun starts moving into different hands.

*takes a breath* I watched the movie last night and the thought of the movie tires me out.  Running Scared is an intense and violent action thriller.  IMDB doesn’t call it a thriller but it is, if not, my heart wouldn’t be racing like at 200km/h and I wouldn’t be holding my breath through most of it.

So, yes, hell yes, I liked Running Scared a lot.  They used some cool and weird exaggerated effects for some of the violent scenes especially for gun shots/firing and I guess you either liked it or you didn’t.  I was the former.  The story was really fast moving, just like running and it was packed with action all the time.  The movie is about 2 hours long and at about an hour and 30 I remember thinking, goodness, I’m tired from all the intensity going on.  Then, the final act hit and things amplified even more.  Intriguing, so very violent and even more vulgar language.  I think almost every dialogue at the F word.  For me, that actually takes a bit of getting used to since I don’t say it that often unless I’m having a crappy day or I’m in a lot of sudden pain.  Either way, I’m guessing if even 25% of the stuff that happened in this movie happened to me in a span of 18 hours, I’d swear a lot too.  That is a really messed up city/district/area that they live in.  It seems there’s only horrible people in all levels of society in that place, pretty disgusting stuff.

On top of all the non-stop action and thrills, we have a pretty impressive cast.  First of all, I’m going to confess that I have a massive girl crush on Vera Farmiga.  I can’t think of one movie that I’ve seen her in that I hated, or even mildly disliked.  The woman is awesome and talking about that, I really can’t wait to see the new season of Bates Motel.  In this one, she’s more of the tough-ish wife that tries to keep her family together and turns a blind eye to her husband Joey’s stuff but when things get rough, she’ll pick herself up and try to protect whoever she has to.   Everyone else, including the kid Oleg played by Cameron Bright was very much great in their own roles and pulled their own weight.

Paul Walker is the main focus of Running Scared.  He carries the action and the thrills throughout the whole movie.  He has to run after this boy and this gun and then a bunch of accidents/bad coincidences happen all at the same time and things go wildly out of control.  I couldn’t help but feel bad for his character but he was totally awesome as Joey Gazelle.  At the same time, his character has to struggle between doing the right thing and having the right results from his choices.

Running Scared is a pretty great action thriller.  One that if you buy into its style (has hints of Tarantino’s effects) and the violent and vulgarity, it takes you for a pretty intense 18 hours of Joey Gazelle’s life as we watch him run around trying to help him and his family survive through this. I’d definitely recommend it 🙂

Yesterday, when I finished this movie at around 1am or so, I checked my Facebook and saw a tribute to Paul Walker using scenes of Fast and Furious.  Check it out if you haven’t already.  They don’t allow embed so just click the link.

Tomorrow, I’ll have one more flick with Paul Walker to wrap up this little marathon.  Remember to check back for it 🙂

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