MOVIE REVIEW : Exhausting ‘Run’ for the Money

Watching “Run” (citywide) is like getting collared at a party by a chance acquaintance who jabbers away a mile a minute about nothing in particular. At first, you’re annoyed. Then you get sucked in by sheer nervous energy.

That’s what the movie does: it never lets you catch your breath. It keeps building. It’s not quite Kafka in Adidas, but it’s a little MTV nightmare based on Hitchcock’s favorite gimmick: The Wrong Man. The theme, in a way, is virtually a steal from “The 39 Steps.”

Here, Patrick Dempsey is card-shark law student Charlie, on a drive-away from Boston, who takes an ill-advised stopover in a New England town called Sawtucket, controlled by a vicious dog-track czar (Ken Pogue). In short order, Charlie drops off for a poker game, flirts with a sexy dealer (Kelly Preston) and gets blamed for the accidental death of a coke-crazed bully (Alan C. Peterson) who turns out to be the crime lord’s beloved son.

As we cut to the chase, all movie car-crash hell breaks loose. No one can be trusted; everyone is corrupt. Cops and crooks alike pursue Charlie relentlessly, and, whenever he stops for a breather, his image pops up on a TV screen and people start screaming. Cars careen wildly through alleys, car lots, carnivals. Guns blaze, maniacs sneer. Charlie is chased through casinos, shopping malls and the dog track. When the movie wants a breather, it strips him down, puts him in Kelly Preston’s bathroom and lets him sweat.

Two principles are operating here. If anything can go wrong, it will. But no catastrophe, however hairy, is permanent. Whenever Charlie gets into a particularly bad fix, he has to think, flail or dumb-luck his way out.

That’s what’s a little different about “Run.” Sweet, cocky, boyishly enthusiastic Charlie--who screams delightedly “I’m so shallow!” while zipping his red Porsche down the highway--is a notably non-macho hero. He apologizes when a villain gets his head split open. He apologizes when he rips off Kelly Preston’s shirt. (The scriptwriters and director are the ones she should blame.) He keeps politely trying to talk his way out of trouble. He just can’t believe what’s happening to him . . . but it never stops.

“Run” never pretends to be anything more than a fast, brutal, exploitative, Plasticine-shiny thriller with a few jokes and a little body tease from Preston. And, perhaps because of that, it gets down to business quickly. I think everyone has miscalculated at the end, when Charlie begins to lose some boyish nervousness and starts snapping off callous cracks; that kind of Schwarzenegger-Stallone badinage plays ugly here. But beyond that, “Run” just keeps on running.

Director Geoff Burrowes, who was involved in both “Snowy River” movies, has a good cinematographer (Bruce Surtees), a good editor (Jack Hofstra), memorably depraved villains (especially Peterson and Pogue) and lots of cars to crash on the Vancouver streets. Somehow, by keeping the action progressively preposterous, he avoids the traps of excessive sadism.

‘Run’

Patrick Dempsey: Charlie Farrow

Kelly Preston: Karen Landers

Ken Pogue: Halloran

Alan C. Peterson: Denny Halloran

A Hollywood Pictures/Silver Screen Partners IV presentation of a Raymond Wagner production, released by Buena Vista Pictures. Director Geoff Burrowes. Producer Raymond Wagner. Executive producer. Screenplay by Dennis Shryack, Michael Blodgett. Cinematographer Bruce Surtees. Editor Jack Hofstra. Costumes Trish Keating. Music Phil Marshall. Production design John Willett. Art director Willie Heslup. Set decorator Elizabeth Wilcox. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (Violence, language).