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| 'Running Scared' Riddled With Ugliness |
| Terrible thriller loves nasty material, video game visuals |
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Brian Orndorf (briano)  |
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Published 2006-02-23 11:46 (KST) |
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The only job small time hood Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) has in his criminal organization is to get rid of the guns used during violent acts. When one of those firearms ends up in the hands of 10 year-old Oleg (Cameron Bright, "Birth"), who uses the gun to shoot his abusive, meth-addicted father, it sends Joey off on a wild night trying to recover the weapon before his bosses find out about the mix up, and attempt to protect his own family (including Vera Farmiga) from the violence that constantly pursues him.
As a film critic, you get used to watching films detailing gruesome moral decay and the general depravity of the criminal underworld. Still, "Running Scared" stopped me dead in my tracks. Here is a motion picture that positively revels in vile underbelly material, taking the face of the viewer and rubbing it in whatever repulsive side of life it can find with its greasy, bloodstained hands. It comes from the "Grand Theft Auto" school of thinking: extreme violence and reprehensibility equals fun and games. But what works on the video game console doesn't translate to the screen in this case, resulting in a flat-out atrocity of storytelling design that requires a thorough shower after viewing.
 |  | | | | | | ©2006 Media 8 Entertainment | Writer/director Wayne Kramer made an unfussy Hollywood debut with the mild 2003 gambling drama, "The Cooler." With "Scared," Kramer is out to prove he's no frivolous filmmaker, taking his screenplay to the extreme limits of content right off the bat. "Scared" trudges heavily through such sunny diversions as: spousal and child abuse; drug addiction; gunfights (most involving children); torture; suicide; unbridled misogyny (there's a good case here to suggest that Kramer hates women); and most egregiously, pedophilia and (unseen, thank heavens) child dismemberment, found in the film's most horrendous and wildly miscalculated idea for entertainment.
As a bitter coating to all this ugliness, Kramer has found a troupe of actors who have no clue how to improv their way through the nitwit dialog (that includes John Wayne idolatry and a goon quoting the "Priceless" MasterCard commercial), and rely lazily on various incarnations of the F-word, or toss in some racial epithets to add some spice to the gruel.
Normally, this toxic brew wouldn't be nearly that offensive, but Kramer shows incredibly unreasonable directorial incompetence throughout the entire film. Approaching the material like a first year film student constipated with "gnarly" visual ideas, yet only allowed one movie to realize them in, Kramer does the Curly Shuffle trying one-up himself with wild CGI-aided tracking shots, frenzied editing, and juvenile lighting effects - including the finale set at a hockey rink lit with black lights (yeah, you read that right).
All this eye candy is woven tightly into the film, making the director's predictable, late-in-the-game stabs at genuine emotional response profoundly hilarious. "Scared" would be more effective as a cartoon if it wasn't so willing to get ugly in order to shock the audience into awe. And the film could pass as pulse-quickening thriller if it didn't resemble at times a miserable, provoking video game you might find collecting dust in a Wal-Mart discount bin. "Scared" wants to be many things to many audiences, but instead it's simply a catastrophe.
So what keeps this floating cinematic garbage barge from overturning? Well, it isn't Paul Walker, who retains his death grip on the one facial gesture he has; which resembles me when I'm asked to solve complex math equations. No, the one actor to survive this debacle is Vera Farmiga, who is the lone performer capable of making Kramer's drivel seem forgivable. Granted she's not an albino pimp, a track suit-wearing "Forrgitttabouit" mafia cliche, or a placid suburban child porn producer, but she manages to make the thankless role of Joey's thong-clad homemaker wife sparkle with intelligence and passion.
Without Farmiga to provide the miner's helmet shred of illumination for this dark tale of criminal woe, I can't imagine how much worse "Running Scared" would've been. And to sleep soundly tonight, I won't even consider the horrors to be found in that line of thought.
D-
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©2006 OhmyNews
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