.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

As the week-end approached, I had my choice of going to the dentist or seeing a Paul Walker film. I picked the dentist.

But as the day wore on, I began to break down. Maybe it was my yearning to find myself in a darkened theatre with a group of strangers and a big tub of popcorn that I in no way needed (just ask last years golf pants). But more likely, it was the drugs I was on thanks to all the dentist pulling and tugging that had my judgment impaired just long enough to throw down a couple of bucks to see Mr. 2 Fast 2 Furious.

Well, luckily, my impairment wasn't so bad that I bought a ticket for 8 Below, but rather I found myself staggering to my seat to see Running Scared a movie title that showcased Billy Crystal and the late Gregory Hines some 20 years ago.

Running Scared stars Paul Walker as Joey Gazelle, and Joey isn't having a good day. Starting with a drug deal that goes south, Joey finds himself in a dramatic shoot-out between the sellers, the buyers and the masked men who bring their shotguns to crash the party. After the bullets are spread and bodies are piled up on top of each other, Joey is given the easy task to disposing of the firearms that were used in the apartment gunfight equivalent to the O.K. Corral.

But Joey seems to have another agenda and takes the gun home only to store it away downstairs while he attends to his wife and his overly active libido. Mistake. Big mistake. For later that same evening, the same gun is used in a shooting next door and Joey will now spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out who has the gun, how they got the gun, and most importantly as it is one of the larger pieces of evidence that links the events of the opening scene to the mobsters he associates, how to get the gun back.

Running Scared really tested my memory. I cannot recall an action film that had every character as a sleazy, violent prick. No exceptions. From the gangsters, to the corrupt cops to even the children that play such a pivotal part to the overall plot, everyone is about as likeable as the racism in Crash. There is not one likeable character amongst them, which is daring. For if you can't have someone to root for during the movie, then why would you care if everyone dies.

The answer is, you don't. In fact, that is part of Running Scared's charm. It piles one despicable character on top of another as if to test the audience's resolve. And each new introduction makes you want to jump into the scene and strangle the person yourself. These emotions culminate and fester until a very awkward scene with two child pornographers that is about as unsettling a moment as I can recall in some time.

Outside of all the negative character developments are the action scenes that couple as much violence and coarse language as Sarah Silverman's routine in The Aristocrats. As we follow the gun from person to person, we get entertained with stabbings, shootings, ears being bitten off and the piece de resistance, Joey's face being pummeled by slap shots from a Russian hockey player.

All this lead to my sheer exhaustion by the time the 122 minutes - and by the way, did it really have to be over two hours of my afternoon? - took me from credit to credit.

And when it was all completed and I could get back to the non-violent world that I inhabit on a daily basis, I was nether appreciative of what I just saw nor was I completely disappointed in the effort. Running Scared is in no way a film that I would pay to see again, but it was entertaining and did keep a pace that kept me interested during the experience. Paul Walker gives his best acting performance to date (although that is like comparing vomit and pooh), but it is an improvement over anything he has thrown out at us in the past four years.

So there you have it. Can't sit on the fence any more than a two and a half stars out of five. I would recommend then that you wait for the DVD release. That way you are closer to a shower and at the end of the film and you can lather off the dirty feeling you will have after seeing such deplorable characters being put out in front of you one after another.