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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Running Scared
New Line Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content
Starring
Paul Walker,
Cameron Bright,
Vera Farmiga,
Chazz Palminteri,
Johnny Messner,
Michael Cudlitz,
Alex Neuberger, Ivana Milicevic, John Noble,
and
David Warshofsky
In order to save his family, a low-level mobster (Walker) must recover a gun used in a mob hit before it's found by his bosses or the cops. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Crime
|
Drama
|
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Wayne Kramer
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Wayne Kramer
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: June 6, 2006
Theatrical: February 24, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
122 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Germany / USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
It's a pumped-up, intricate and fast-moving yarn that never flags and continues to play out in unexpected ways as it unravels.

83
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Paul "Surfer Boy" Walker turns in a very credible action performance if you give him a Jersey accent, cover him in grime and beat the ever-loving tar out of him for two hours.

75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
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.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
If Running Scared had come out in 1994, before "Pulp Fiction," it - and Kramer - would be hailed as blazingly original. But questions of originality notwithstanding, there's plenty of blazing going on here.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
If you like kinetic movies about crime, criminals, and all sorts of bad behavior, Running Scared will catch and hold your attention.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Goes so far over the top, it circumnavigates the top and doubles back on itself; it's the Mobius Strip of over-the-topness. I am in awe. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Then it throws in the kitchen sink, too, and the combo washer-dryer in the laundry room, while the hero and his wife are having sex on top of it.

75
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It's way too violent and perversely excessive for many tastes, but there's more to its outrages than meets the eye, and that second look is well worth taking.

70
Film Threat
Michael Ferraro
An overly ambitious guilty pleasure with enough action and violence to keep you interested, it just doesn’t have much else.

63
Premiere
Jessica Letkemann
Ultimately, it is a serviceable, well-made thriller that earns its R rating.

60
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
There also are hints of Doug Liman and Tony Scott to be found in this hopped-up, bullet-riddled crime thriller, but while certain sequences pack an admitted visceral kick, the prevailing effect is one of utter overkill.

50
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Even a talented lead couldn't save Mr. Kramer from himself. As a writer, he may have fashioned a genre-busting screenplay, one that has its postmodern cake and eats it, too, but as a director he proves himself as blood simple, if generally less adept, as any Hollywood hire.

50
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Not surprisingly, everything feels begged, borrowed and stolen from other better movies, from Quentin Tarantino's exclamation-point violence to the slo-mo bullet trajectory shots from "The Matrix."

50
Variety
Justin Chang
There's no denying that viewers not prepared for the relentless stream of nasty personalities, profane invective and bone-crunching violence are in for a very long sit.

50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
The ugliness on display in Running Scared has neither "Sin City's" context nor its wit, and it offers little more than stylish excess for its own sake, with no clear aspirations other than to twist people's arms until they yelp "Uncle."

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Running Scared's relationship to "The Cooler" is roughly that of industrial metal to a quaint torch song.

40
LA Weekly
Chuck Wilson
Running Scared is decently acted and divertingly brutal, but it's also a giant step backward for its maker.

40
Village Voice
Luke Y. Thompson
Writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) is about as skilled at storytelling as Walker is at acting, which is to say not very.

38
USA Today
Mike Clark
A potential howler done in by a tendency to wear too much body tissue on its sleeve.

38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The whole movie is some kind of joke, a sick one to be savored by a certain segment of the movie audience. You know who you are.

38
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Running Scared has some camp value as the kind of midnight movie you can laugh at (not with), but it isn't so much imitation Tarantino as it is imitation imitation Tarantino.

33
Entertainment Weekly
Scott Brown
Running is a fevered smashup, as if Hollywood dug up Sam Peckinpah's corpse and forced it to adapt "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for the screen.

30
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
A vicious, incoherent shoot-'em-up.

25
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bill White
Writer/director Wayne Kramer's approach to storytelling is to withhold any information that might give away the plot.

25
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
When promising independent filmmakers decide to jump on the bandwagon and pump up the gore, the results are sure to be touted as visceral and unflinching. Don't be fooled. Kramer has even commented that the movie should be viewed as a modern-day Grimm's fairy tale. It's grim all right.

25
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
The result is an out-of-control, lost-in-the-funhouse experience.

25
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
A depressing piece of gun-crazy Hollywood scuzz that, with its gassy style and runaway immorality, makes a Tony Scott movie look like a Robert Bresson picture.

25
Chicago Tribune
Allison Benedikt
I have a sneaking suspicion that Running Scared could become a cult classic.

20
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
It's lower on the food chain than a mere exploitation picture because it clings so desperately to the notion that it's a serious movie about violence; it doesn't even have enough integrity to serve up cheap, sick thrills for their own sake.

20
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
It's not just a bad movie it actually manages to suck the very hope out of the air, leaving behind a cinematic vacuum populated by mobsters, sadists, pedophiliac demon-people, and an overwhelming sense of futility that just makes you want to run in the other direction.

0
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
Running Scared is so desperate and surreally stupid that all you would have to do to see it as a brilliant sendup of everything that is corrupt, vulgar, sad, deluded and bad-for-you about Hollywood is squint.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 52 User Votes
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