MOVIE REVIEW : FAST FRIENDS ‘RUNNING SCARED’

Peter Hyams’ “Running Scared” (citywide) opens fast, bright and super-funny. By the time it’s 20 minutes old, the movie has generated so much affection for its inventive, cool-cat Chicago cops, Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal, that when the story begins to fray at the edges, we don’t notice--or don’t want to notice.

The middle section has the movie’s great action set piece, a fresh and freshly harrowing car chase; almost unbelievably, one that really works. (Director-executive producer Hyams was also his own cameraman--a rare screen credit. His knack of putting us in the driver’s seat does the trick.)

By the movie’s close, when things have gotten really played out and dumb, there is still so much pure, generous joy radiating from this nifty pair that it’s impossible to feel short-changed. Well, almost impossible. It might be nice if writers Gary DeVore and Jimmy Huston had a notion--any notion--of what constitutes an interesting female character. Standing (or in one case, lying) by your man like Lassie isn’t quite enough these days. Maybe next collaboration. . . .

In a somewhat leisurely fashion, we discover that “Running Scared’s” screenplay, from DeVore’s original story, is a variation on that beloved plot device “Only X weeks to go.” Used to be that in war movies you could unerringly pick out the men who weren’t going to make it--hash-marked sergeants or heroic captains with wives and Irish setters waiting for them back home. You always learned that they had “only X weeks more to go.”

Same here. While they’re busy taking inventory of the scum of the earth in Chicago (mostly drug traffickers), undercover men Crystal and Hines don’t seem to notice that pension time is just around the corner. It’s only after plot devices take them to Key West (for a wholly expendable sequence) and they decide to retire there and open a bar together that there’s much talk about X weeks to go.

It has an odd effect. It makes the men cautious. (Has their success for almost two decades come from being careless but lucky?) Now we’re supposed to worry as much as they that this lovable team won’t make it to the final reel.

To put on a little more plot pressure, their captain (Dan Hedaya, in a lovely comic turn) presents them with their future replacements, hotheaded hotshots Steven Bauer and Jonathan Gries, and insists they be taught every trick Crystal and Hines know. Mostly, the new men put the veterans in the line of fire a few dozen extra times.

There’s really fine texture at the opening of “Running Scared” (MPAA-rated R)--a great sleazy character named Snake (Joe Pantoliano), the partners’ silken assurance in and around their neighborhoods, and any number of good solid gags, accomplished with the utmost throwaway nonchalance. After all the spurious “chemistry” between acting pairs that’s oozed across the screen, Crystal and Hines give us friendship so tangible you can warm your hands at it.

“Running Scared’s” razor-crisp editing (by James Mitchell) shows that you can combine mayhem and laughs. But the action becomes huge, cartoony, out of scale, crushing the warmth Crystal and Hines have built up. And the movie is too long by about 15 minutes, a deadly thought for a comedy.

The women, Darlanne Fluegel and Tracy Reed, are stuck with almost nothing to play.

And still--teamwork like Crystal’s and Hines’ survives. Somehow, you may just suspect that these gentlemen will be back. You can only wish their writers well.

‘RUNNING SCARED’ A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presentation of a Turman-Foster Co. production. Executive producer Peter Hyams. Producers David Foster, Lawrence Turman. Director, cinematographer Hyams. Screenplay Gary DeVore, Jimmy Huston from a story by DeVore. Editor James Mitchell. Production design Albert Brenner. Music Rod Temperton. Set decorator George P. Gaines. Associate producer Jonathan A. Zimbert. With Gregory Hines, Billy Crystal, Steven Bauer, Darlanne Fluegel, Joe Pantoliano, Dan Hedaya, Jimmy Smits, Jonathan Gries, Tracy Reed.

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (persons under 17 must be accompanied by parent or adult guardian).

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