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Reviews Counted:126
Fresh:50
Rotten:76
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: This film runs with frenetic energy punctuated by gratuitous violence but sorely lacks in plot, character development and stylistic flair.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: Not the 1986 Billy Crystal-Gregory Himes buddy cop movie of the same name, 2006's RUNNING SCARED is writer/director Wayne Kramer's (THE COOLER) take on the violent gangster crime genre. Paul Walker... [More]
Starring: Chazz Palminteri, Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Ivana Milicevic
Director: Wayne Kramer
For a moment, it appears as if Running Scared has developed into a different, better movie. But subsequent gratuitously violent scenes hint at a determination by Kramer to keep his film at low-grade exploitation level.
It's hard to believe that this mess was made by the same man who made The Cooler.
I chuckled along with the audience at every garish twist (at least for the first 60 of the the movie's 120 minutes), yet even as Dali-esque nightmare, the movie eventually became off-putting.
The film is comically profane, hyperviolent and studded with perverse details.
It's borderline irresponsible, a virtual horror movie of a gangster thriller.
It's ridiculous, over-the-top and as allegorical as The Warriors, in its own twisted way, only far more convoluted and darkly funny. And it's probably the year's first action movie spurred by actual, provocative ideas.
Kramer seems to be aping Quentin Tarantino's brilliant tangents in Pulp Fiction, but he doesn't have Tarantino's imagination or gift for dialogue.
This overlong fantasy of urban violence is so far over the top -- you might as well be watching a computer monitor while somebody else has a high time playing the video game Grand Theft Auto.
Running Scared is a vicious and brutal B-movie jacked up to hysterical, hallucinatory proportions -- a pulpy, violent action picture that torments the viewer as much as its characters, and I mean that as a compliment.
With a herky-jerky visual style and a plot riddled with bullet holes, Running Scared is a brutal, misanthropic and downright nasty excuse for bang-bang entertainment.
As the movie becomes more howlingly ludicrous by the second, it's tempting -- and not in a cynical way, either -- to start reading it as a parody of pornographic video game violence.
Top Critic[Writer/director Wayne] Kramer has discovered a new apogee of awfulness with this utterly obscene movie, which makes no bones about its own idiocy...
Kramer's grating bombast exists only to call attention to itself as well as the complete absence of any moral implications or recognizable human behavior in the film.
The script is so stupid that at times you'll want to roll your eyes in the dark; you won't, though, because you might miss some of the action.
But even beyond its sleazy pandering and sensationalism, the film's worst transgression is its exploitation of young children.
It drags on and on and on and on...and on. We never thought we'd ever say this, but Paul Walker deserves better.
An exhilarating bloodbath of a film, Running Scared may not be perfect, but it's got adrenaline, wild eyes and sleaze to spare.
...an abhorrently exploitative exercise in child endangerment.
You could laugh off the film's more over-the-top aspects -- including the performances and its quasi-Quentin Tarantino dialogue -- if it didn't treat women and children with such brutality and contempt.
Running Scared is not only toxic but irresponsible in the way it exposes young characters to a steady barrage of sleaze and violence.
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February 27, 2006:
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Tyler Perry's follow-up to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," "Madea's Family Reunion" had no trouble leaping to the top of the box office in its first weekend,... More...
February 24, 2006:
"Scared" Director Seeks "Evil
Wayne Kramer, director of "The Cooler" and this weekend's "Running Scared," will write and direct his next flick for Weinstein Co. It's a horror flick called... More...
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