Movies exist for various reasons, but in the end, they exist to get a certain emotion or reaction from us. The reaction that writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) obviously wants from his latest film, Running Scared, is total disgust and revulsion. If this is true, he's done his job well judging by the reaction of different audience members walking out of my screening. Here is one of the most unflinchingly violent, uncomfortable, unsettling, and just plain nasty filmgoing experiences I've had in a very long time. For its entire 2-hour running time, the movie parades deplorable and evil people doing deplorable and evil things in graphic detail and, just to make us feel even more uncomfortable, puts two 10-year old boys right into the middle of it all. The film's total lack of any sort of moral value makes the film's final twist, which seems to exist solely to give us a happy ending, all the more of a cop out. While I can't really recommend a movie like this, as I have no idea who the heck this would appeal to, I would be lying if I didn't say I couldn't take my eyes off the screen the entire time, mostly out of stunned disbelief.

Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is a low-level hood in the mob who, as the film opens, has just survived a gunfight with some crooked cops after a drug deal goes bad, and has just been charged by his boss to dispose of the weapon used in the fight. He puts the gun in a bag and stashes it in a secret compartment in his basement. Unknown to him, his 10-year old son Nicky (Alex Neuberger) and his best friend Oleg (Cameron Bright, who previously played the evil clone kid in Godsend and Nicole Kidman's reincarnated husband in Birth) were playing hockey in the basement earlier, and happen to see him stash the weapon. Oleg lives in the house next door where his Russian immigrant stepfather (John Noble) frequently abuses both him and his mother, and does nothing but sit around and watch old John Wayne movies on TV. Oleg has had enough of his father's cruelty, and so without anyone knowing, takes Joey's gun from the secret compartment, and uses it to injure his father.

Oleg is now on the run, and with the gun in his possession. The film follows Joey as he desperately searches for the child and also tries to cover up the evidence so that his boss does not discover that the gun he was told to get rid of is missing. With crooked cops combing the city for the weapon, and the mob following his every move and becoming increasingly suspicious, Joey has his work cut out for him. As for Oleg, he is on the run as well from a series of unsavory characters that he keeps on encountering. Abusive pimps, psychotic pedophile couples, and even his own father (who seems to make a remarkably fast recovery) are just some of the people who will frequently put his life in danger, hold him at gunpoint, or torture him. The film cuts back and forth between both characters until the stories merge in a climax that takes place at a hockey rink that has to be seen to be believed.

Running Scared is so over the top that it would be downright ludicrous if it didn't take itself so seriously. Here is a movie that paints the city of New Jersey as if it were the lowest level of Hell. Every single person is crooked, evil, vile, corrupt, or a murderous lowlife. The film has an increasingly bleak and horrific tone that carries all the way through the film up to the last 10 minutes when the movie suddenly takes a sharp turn into sunshine and loved ones wrapping their arms around each other. To say that the last couple minutes don't fit the rest of the movie is an understatement. Here is a movie that opens with an action sequence that contains more violence and more obscenities than most R-rated films contain in their entire running time. In the first 3 minutes alone, not only do we get to hear an unheard of number of swear words (the ones that aren't drowned out by gunfire, at least), but also graphic depictions of a man getting his brains blown out of his head and another man getting shot in the crotch. This certainly sets you up for what's to come, but it's only the start, as the film will also force us to watch such acts as a man setting himself on fire, someone getting their ear bitten off, and an extended sequence where 10-year old Oleg is held captive by a pedophile husband and wife who videotape sexual acts with him, and then try to suffocate him with a plastic bag. The fact that this movie got by with just an R-rating is a small miracle, and I haven't even mentioned the psychotic hockey players who gruesomely bloody Paul Walker's face by shooting pucks at him while evil mobsters hold him down to the ice, and threaten to murder the kid.

Judging by the animated sequence that accompanies the ending credits (where we watch highlights from the film done in a children's storybook style, which makes it all the more twisted), this is supposed to be some sort of deranged urban fairy tale about a little lost boy who is trying to escape from his evil stepparent, and keeps on running into even worse individuals. I didn't realize this until I saw the credits however, because the movie is so chaotic and fast-paced, I don't think anyone could have picked up on that angle without the help of the cartoon at the end. Writer-director Kramer seems to be channeling filmmaker Tony Scott here, as the movie uses just about every cinematic trick in the book. Slow motion, fast motion, instant replay, rewind and fast forward, jump cuts, shaky cam, black and white, animation...You name the film method, and Wayne Kramer tries his hand at it. In the wrong hands (see Tony Scott's last film, Domino, which was a confusing mess of images and ideas), this style of filmmaking can quickly become obnoxious to me. But, somehow, Running Scared knows how to exploit it in such a way so that it's used constantly but never becomes annoying. This is a very artistic film, and there are many moments that really caught my attention. The most clever and creative is when Oleg has locked himself in the bathroom of the pedophile couple, and is trying to reach help via a cell phone. The evil wife is hovering just outside the door which is covered in glass which distorts the image of the person outside. Although she appears as a human outside, whenever the film cuts to Oleg in the bathroom and we see her pacing back and forth outside the glass, trying to hear who he's talking to, her silhouette appears to be that of a demon or some other sort of monster. It is a very creepy and very effective moment, and I guess it ties into the whole fairy tale theme that Kramer was trying for. Also, the rapid fire film style never becomes so chaotic or messy that the story becomes lost, or that we can't tell what we're supposed to be looking at. There is a method to the madness.

The performances are also generally solid all the way through. For the first time, Paul Walker actually seems to be acting and playing someone else besides his usual nice guy pretty boy image. He's intimidating and ruthless, but not so much so that we don't want him to find the child. I guess he's the lesser of multiple evils, considering the other people who inhabit this film. Young Cameron Bright as the boy on the run is generally good, though he doesn't have much in terms of dialogue, and basically has to react in horror to what he's exposed to. I do have to question what his parents were thinking agreeing to let him take this film, however. I'm sure the mood on the set was kept intentionally light for the sake of the children who are often at the center of the film's most gruesome and over the top sequences, but still, you have to wonder if the filmmakers had to do a little extra coaxing with the parents to get him involved.

Though the film is generally well made all around, you get the sense that it's just a lot of bells and whistles built around a script that seeks only to shock, offend, and offer gory thrills. That's where Running Scared starts to fall apart. There's very little to the film other than some elaborate action sequences where multiple people get murdered in increasingly violent ways, some bordering on inhumane masochism. The film keeps on trying to shock us, and although the characters never quite become lost in the madness, it does kind of get hard to keep track of everything that's going on when the movie keeps on throwing buckets of blood in our faces. There are a lot of characters in this movie, many of whom exist only to die, and some who seem to come and go as the screenplay sees fit. The film also becomes almost laughable near the end as it has not one, not two, but three climaxes where the Russian kid's life is threatened, and Joey must murder a bunch of more people to protect him. It's like the movie just doesn't know when to stop. Too bad it didn't stop before we get an almost groan-worthy twist on Joey's character which not only goes against absolutely everything we've seen him do up to that point, but also screams desperation for some sort of a happy ending. The ending is actually too happy judging by everything that comes before. This is a movie that gives us an hour and 50 minutes of the overly exaggerated dark side of human nature, and a final 10 minutes of sunshine, rainbows, and fluffy bunnies. It's almost like the director is apologizing for his own movie, and wants us to leave on a high note. Sorry, Mr. Kramer, doesn't work that way.

Do I recommend Running Scared? Only for those who are looking for an increasingly violent and immoral film experience. The movie was a bit much at times for me, but I admired the skill with which the film was made. It constantly wobbles on that dangerous line of becoming a completely reprehensible filmgoing experience, but somehow never quite falls over the edge. I did not like the movie, but did not hate it quite as much as I probably should have. This movie had a very strange effect on me, and it looked like on the rest of the audience too, as opinion was widely mixed from "it was interesting" to "who would want to make a movie like that"? I guess I fall somewhere in-between. I will say this, I'll never look at a hockey game the same way again.

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