 |
|||
 |
 |
||
 | |||
 | |||||||||||
|
|
Starring Bruce Campbell. Learning before you are to screen a film that it is being marketed as a 'technical marvel' and a 'true achievement in the cinematic medium' is usually something akin to learning that the blind date your mother has arranged for you has a 'a nice personality'. If a movie earned $150 million at the box office, had an elegant style of direction, or was home to an outstanding acting performance or two, logic usually states that you would hear about those qualities before the exposition on the film's breakthrough in technique. Usually. Writer/director Josh Becker's Running Time makes it a matter of principal to completely defy this logic.Like Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, Running Time is shot in such a manner that it appears to the untrained eye that the entire movie was filmed in one continuous take. However, the parallels with Rope end there. While Rope suffered immeasurably because of the rather tedious nature of its screenplay and single soundstage setting, Becker avoided these pitfalls by crafting a clever, crime-gone-wrong screenplay complete with gun fights and chase scenes, and then, just to make things interesting, decided to go out and shoot Running Time on location around Los Angeles. Bruce Campbell, late of the Evil Dead trilogy, stars in Running Time as Carl, a man just released from prison. Proving once and for all that the system simply doesn't work, Campbell has masterminded a new criminal venture from inside the pen. A mere 45 minutes after walking out of jail, Campbell and his makeshift crew plan to rob an office with a safe containing several hundred thousand dollars in cash. As is par for the course in crime-gone-wrong movies, things quickly take a turn for the worse, and Campbell and company are left to fend for themselves, with the police and rightful owners of the money frantically searching for them. Adapted from a story by Peter Y. Choi, Becker's screenplay is a simplistic delight. Unassuming and extraordinarily tight, Becker includes exactly what he has to to best tell Running Time's story, and no more. This is quite the opposite scenario that most films encounter. Most young screenwriters like to bombard the viewer with as many facts and character traits as they can in a short amount of time, mistakenly believing that inundating the audience with this trivial information is the same as creating characters with depth and dimension. But by far, the most entertaining element of Running Time was starring at the screen in utter amazement and asking the question, "How'd they do that?" Time and time again, I found myself marveling at the blocking of the actors during the middle of a given ten minute take, the superior usage of the steadi-cam, and the mind-blowing choreography of the extras, actors, and crew. How Becker and his production crew got the cast to change a truck's flat tire in a given two minute interval with no cuts is positively mystifying. Campbell's performance in Running Time is quite solid, with his easy-going charm working well within the constantly evolving nature of this film. Becker has created a stunning technological cinematic achievement with Running Time, but, more importantly, Becker has created one hell of an enjoyable film to watch.
|
| |||||
