The protagonist will learn it's going to be one of those days, where you are going to be riding your luck. A law student wins a poker game unknowingly against the son of a mob boss, but things get even worse when a freak accident leaves him running for his life with the mob and police after him. This early nineties thriller is a mildly distracting and accessible on-the-run narrative with a collection chases on foot and in car with a decent Patrick Dempsey in the lead. Quite predictable and formulaic, but it's nippy pace makes it move along smoothly (where it moves from one scene to another) and the script keeps its rather simple never letting it get over-complicated by just concentrating on the chaos that is erupting. Along for the ride is the ravishing Kelly Preston and then the mob figures Ken Pogue and Sean McCann. Plus a bonus, where can you see a death by mechanical rabbit."I don't talk to dead men.".

I just felt way too much of a Class B-type feel to this film to be appealing. In other words, this wasn't a classy-looking or sounding film. The best thing it had going for itself was the beginning in which there was an incredible scene involving a super-obnoxious punk who was looking for trouble. Unfortunately, this "punk" turned out to be Patrick Dempsey playing "Charlie Farrow," and he was the main star of the film. Dempsey was way too cocky and unlikeable for me to be a sympathetic good-guy character. I could not root for him. In real life, by the way, "Farrow") would have been thrown out of the gambling casino (or poker game, in this case) LONG before any trouble started.

"Run" is one of those underrated gems that you hope to find when you take a chance and rent (or watch) a movie that you know very little about. I first rented this in 1991 when it came out on VHS and found it extremely entertaining...when the Mystery channel showed it again a while back, I made a point of catching it, and was pleased to note how well it holds up. This is the kind of movie where the performances are 'fat free' and underplayed and effective, where the stunts and action pieces are inventive and inspired without drawing too much attention to themselves, where the writing is economical and streamlined. Admittedly, "Run" is definite "B" caliber, with a pretty shallow plot and cardboard characters, but within its parameters (action/crime thriller with Hitchcokian elements) it does a wonderful job. Patrick Dempsey is a completely believable 'everyman', a skinny nerdish type who shows up at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets into a heap of trouble. With corrupt cops and angry hoodlums chasing him, he has no choice but to try to get out of a town that the Mafia seems to own from City Hall on down. The screenplay is tightly plotted, with the screws being turned tighter and tighter on poor Dempsey with each new development, and his character's only advantage is that he is, well, extremely slippery. Casting a skinny "geek" like Dempsey in this role was an inspired stroke . Dempsey is no one's idea of a typical 'action hero' and so he doesn't act like one...as a result his characters reactions are extremely credible. He can't do an "Ah-nold" or shoot things out like Dirty Harry - all he can do is squirm and wriggle and dodge his way out of tighter and tighter situations. And boy, does he (or his stunt doubles) wriggle. Action scenes and stunts in this movie are thus keyed to evasion,deception and Desperation. Our 'hero' slithers down stadium stairs and slides headfirst down bowling alleys and hurdles steeplejack style over and under obstacles and in general just runs like a rabbit from danger. Even at the climax, when he's finally been caught and subdued and is about to be thrown off a rooftop, he squirms so hard and frenziedly that the two hoodlums that were meant to toss him off end up losing their balance and falling in his place! "Run" is very enjoyable for what it is, and can be enjoyed by any fan of films like "The Man Who Knew Too Much". After a long slump, Dempsey eventually went on to great success on television (most recently in "Grey's Anatomy") and went from a skinny geek to something of a "hunk"...that cheers me immensely...there may be hope for us all.

I would consider Run in comparison to an Anthony Michael Hall movie called Out of Bounds and make the recommendation for the former if this is the kind of movie that you're in the mood for. Out of Bounds, which I think came out in 1986, stars Hall as an Iowan kid who goes to visit his brother in Los Angeles. Through a case of mistaken identity, he suddenly finds himself in a world of trouble, running from drug lords and cops, because (insert forced gasp here) he picks up the same gym as another person who was smuggling dope. Well, not to give away to much of the story, he finds this quirky girl to help him out. Out of Bounds is very similar to Run in that, through mistaken assumptions, a kid is on the run from both the mob and crooked cops. A girl helps this kid out in his desperate struggle to escape a whole slew of maniacs. Run and Out of Time are both basically films about kids spending a whole movie trying to figure out how they're going to avoid their doom. Run, however, makes for a much better movie than Out of Time, despite people's inclination for early Anthony Michael Hall movies. In Out of Time, he hardly acted like he wanted to be in the movie. Other than the girl that helps him out, it is a whole lot of nothing and rather predictable "coincidences." Though only a B movie, it Run is much more exciting with efforts in acting as well as action scenes (such as the police car falling off of the mall parking garage and the man dangling over the edge from his pants leg). If you like Patrick Dempsey and Kelly Preston, you're probably certain to enjoy this film. It's actually a good lazy day kind of film.