Movie of the Week: Running Scared

   

 

    Movie of the Week (12/8/13-12/14/13): Hey, gang! I know I am very late this week, but the heavy snow and ice this past weekend caused us to have no Internet for a few days. But, I'm back now bringing you all the movie of the week, which I know you were anxiously waiting for! This week we are going to steer away from the Christmas movies. As all of you know we lost Paul Walker about a week and half ago, so young at that, and I thought we could honor his memory this week by watching a movie in which was underrated and a movie where he gave us his best and most powerful performance. That movie is Running Scared.
    This 2006 film was not very well known by the national audience upon its release into theaters, it wasn't until it reached home video that it gained popularity. But, once it did more and more people began raving about Paul's performance. The film focuses on a thug who, after a drug deal gone wrong, is suppose to get rid of the gun used to kill a dirty cop in the drug deal. But, things take a drastic turn when his neighbor's kid finds and takes it to shoot his abusive father. The gun then takes a trip through the night ending up in the wrong hands as Joey, Paul Walker, races to find it before everything goes terribly wrong. He runs into several events throughout the night and by the end of the movie he reveals a big secret.

Paul Walker displaying his talent in a scene of rage. 

    As I said, the film stars the late Paul Walker as Joey Gazelle who is a low time thug trying to make a living, or so we think. Walker delivers us the best performance of his career and it is a powerful one, one that probably should have had Oscar consideration. As things get worse in the film he gets better and better, this film is driven by him and the amount of talent he showed in this film showed us what he was really capable of. The supporting cast is pretty good here too, although there are not too many well known actors. We have Chazz Palminteri as a corrupt cop, Vera Farmiga as Joey's wife, Cameron Bright as Oleg, the kid who took the gun, Alex Neuberger as Joey's and Teresa's son, Johnny Messner as a young mob thug, Michael Cudlitz as another mobster thug, and Bruce Altman and Elizabeth Mitchell as Dez and Edele respectively as a frightening couple that we come across in the film's events.
    The other really good thing to say about this film is that it was written very well. It is an interesting story that takes place all in one night and the scenes where written very well, even if some of them are disturbing. It was written by the director, Wayne Kramer, who is virtually unknown but did a very good job at directing this dark movie. There are several scenes that are frightening, not scary, to watch because they were written and directed so well. One scene in particular, which is the best in the film, is the scene at the hockey rink, towards the end, it is so well written, directed, acted, and edited that it gave me chills when I watched it. Kramer is not a well known director but he did a great job with this picture.
    The film also has good editing, but at times the editing is a little to extreme, it seems they got slap happy with it every now and then and I think that was a weakness in the film. With the film taking place at night and in not very well lit places it can be hard to see sometimes, but the majority of the time you can tell what it going on perfectly and that made the film have great cinematography and lighting at times when it needed it, for example, the hockey rink scene. Overall this is a well written and powerfully acted film with a few hiccups every now and then. But, this film is graphic at times and that means the violence, language, and sexual content. It is so graphic in fact that the director thought it would get an NC-17 rating when he submitted it, but it got an R rating, nevertheless he was disappointed that it did not. This is a very good film because the late Paul Walker put everything he had into this film and it will be one of his to remember for years to come. Rest easy Paul.
3/4 Stars