Running Scared
New Line Cinema | Release Date: February 24, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
8
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's a pumped-up, intricate and fast-moving yarn that never flags and continues to play out in unexpected ways as it unravels. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Paul "Surfer Boy" Walker turns in a very credible action performance if you give him a Jersey accent, cover him in grime and beat the ever-loving tar out of him for two hours. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
If you like kinetic movies about crime, criminals, and all sorts of bad behavior, Running Scared will catch and hold your attention. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Goes so far over the top, it circumnavigates the top and doubles back on itself; it's the Mobius Strip of over-the-topness. I am in awe. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Then it throws in the kitchen sink, too, and the combo washer-dryer in the laundry room, while the hero and his wife are having sex on top of it. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's way too violent and perversely excessive for many tastes, but there's more to its outrages than meets the eye, and that second look is well worth taking. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
If Running Scared had come out in 1994, before "Pulp Fiction," it - and Kramer - would be hailed as blazingly original. But questions of originality notwithstanding, there's plenty of blazing going on here. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Running Scared is a vicious and brutal B-movie jacked up to hysterical, hallucinatory proportions -- a pulpy, violent action picture that torments the viewer as much as its characters, and I mean that as a compliment. Read full review
70
Film ThreatMichael Ferraro
An overly ambitious guilty pleasure with enough action and violence to keep you interested, it just doesn’t have much else. Read full review
63
PremiereJessica Letkemann
Ultimately, it is a serviceable, well-made thriller that earns its R rating. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
There also are hints of Doug Liman and Tony Scott to be found in this hopped-up, bullet-riddled crime thriller, but while certain sequences pack an admitted visceral kick, the prevailing effect is one of utter overkill. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin Chang
There's no denying that viewers not prepared for the relentless stream of nasty personalities, profane invective and bone-crunching violence are in for a very long sit. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Not surprisingly, everything feels begged, borrowed and stolen from other better movies, from Quentin Tarantino's exclamation-point violence to the slo-mo bullet trajectory shots from "The Matrix." Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Even a talented lead couldn't save Mr. Kramer from himself. As a writer, he may have fashioned a genre-busting screenplay, one that has its postmodern cake and eats it, too, but as a director he proves himself as blood simple, if generally less adept, as any Hollywood hire. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Running Scared's relationship to "The Cooler" is roughly that of industrial metal to a quaint torch song. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The ugliness on display in Running Scared has neither "Sin City's" context nor its wit, and it offers little more than stylish excess for its own sake, with no clear aspirations other than to twist people's arms until they yelp "Uncle." Read full review
40
Village VoiceLuke Y. Thompson
Writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) is about as skilled at storytelling as Walker is at acting, which is to say not very. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
Running Scared is decently acted and divertingly brutal, but it's also a giant step backward for its maker. Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
A potential howler done in by a tendency to wear too much body tissue on its sleeve. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The whole movie is some kind of joke, a sick one to be savored by a certain segment of the movie audience. You know who you are. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
Running Scared has some camp value as the kind of midnight movie you can laugh at (not with), but it isn't so much imitation Tarantino as it is imitation imitation Tarantino. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyScott Brown
Running is a fevered smashup, as if Hollywood dug up Sam Peckinpah's corpse and forced it to adapt "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for the screen. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A vicious, incoherent shoot-'em-up. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
When promising independent filmmakers decide to jump on the bandwagon and pump up the gore, the results are sure to be touted as visceral and unflinching. Don't be fooled. Kramer has even commented that the movie should be viewed as a modern-day Grimm's fairy tale. It's grim all right. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
Writer/director Wayne Kramer's approach to storytelling is to withhold any information that might give away the plot. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The result is an out-of-control, lost-in-the-funhouse experience. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
A depressing piece of gun-crazy Hollywood scuzz that, with its gassy style and runaway immorality, makes a Tony Scott movie look like a Robert Bresson picture. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
I have a sneaking suspicion that Running Scared could become a cult classic. Read full review
20
SalonStephanie Zacharek
It's lower on the food chain than a mere exploitation picture because it clings so desperately to the notion that it's a serious movie about violence; it doesn't even have enough integrity to serve up cheap, sick thrills for their own sake. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's not just a bad movie it actually manages to suck the very hope out of the air, leaving behind a cinematic vacuum populated by mobsters, sadists, pedophiliac demon-people, and an overwhelming sense of futility that just makes you want to run in the other direction. Read full review
0
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Running Scared is so desperate and surreally stupid that all you would have to do to see it as a brilliant sendup of everything that is corrupt, vulgar, sad, deluded and bad-for-you about Hollywood is squint. Read full review
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