“Running Scared”, an action film intentionally alluding to Grimm’s fairy tales, is a tough movie to watch. It’s an interesting and bold mix, which may have lost viewers earlier this year, although moviegoers in the US seemed to flock to Paul Walker’s other film that month, the one with the dogs. That film wasn’t bad, but boy, did people miss out on “Scared”- Walker’s best acting performance he has done to date.

A dark moody bunch of eccentric characters, from Pimp Lester (David Warshofsky) to a mysterious drug loving Wino, and most notably a very kid unfriendly couple (Bruce Altman, Elizabeth Mitchell) with a Hansel and Gretel motif, come in and out in this film, which follows the hunt for a missing gun used in the killing of a dirty police officer, and a small abused boy (Cameron Bright) who took the gun in the first place. Hot in pursuit of the gun and the boy is Joey Gazelle (Walker) who has to hide both from his Mob enforcer friend Tommy Perello (the underused actor Johnny Messner) and other crazy characters. While I’ve generally liked Messner in supporting parts like “Spartan” and “Tears Of The Sun”, he’s generally not as used as much as he is here. He’s a good actor and deserves to be a bigger name. But the real surprise for me was Walker. I didn’t care for his acting in the “Fast and Furious” films, and I didn’t think he was good in “Joyride’ or ‘Into The Blue’, although the latter was jut simply a bad movie and I was sort of busy looking at Jessica Alba’s legs at the time. Anyway, one great gag in ‘Scared’ is the movie magic of dressing up streets of Prague to look like a fictitious urban American city, as well as the breakdown shots of where magic bullets may go.

Upon watching this, you have to remind yourself that the man behind the camera is Wayne Kramer, whose previous picture was “The Cooler” which also had a few kooky characters, mob guys, a very intimate sex scene, shocks and surprises. If the previous film was a character study with a touch of irony, this a balls to the wall action picture that uses mostly CGI blood to good and effective use. I do mean remind yourself-because if his name was off the credits, you might think Quentin Tarantino might have had a finger in this pie. He doesn’t. Yet throughout the film, besides the nod to dark fairy tales, there are pop-culture references, mexican stand offs and so on. There’s even a character actor, Chazz Palminteri, in the film. Kramer does not copy Tarintino’s style, though. He puts his own mark on this. What we get isn’t just a rollercoaster ride of suspense and ticking clocks; Kramer gives us the funhouse too. And a neon backlit hockey rink if that weren’t enough.

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Running Scared

Directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Paul Walker, Johnny Messner, Vera Farmiga, Cameron Bright, and Chazz Palminteri.