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Black Cat RunRating:
Release Date: 03 February, 2004 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $8.99 You SAVE: $0.99! Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
Black Cat Run Reviews
Action? ... Where?
I caught the first 70 minutes of this lame so-called "action" flick on late-night TV. The reason I sat down to watch was the high-paced scene near the beginning of the film where four prisoners escape from a work crew and drive off in a stolen car. "What the heck," I thought. "It shows promise." Then, when the movie had reeled me in, it subjected me to the longest 30-minute wait of my life.
NOTHING happens for half an hour. NOTHING. The protagonist, a race-car driver, is introduced, along with his girlfriend (who becomes a hostage), the competing love interest (a small-town cop), and several bit characters who basically disappear from the film once the action gets going. It's like the film-maker fell asleep. When you've just seen someone get shot through the stomach in slow motion within the first five minutes of the film, that sets the pace for what you expect ... and the movie shatters that expectation completely by subjecting you to the soap-opera lives of the Del Grissoms and their hick-town neighbors.
The film picks up again near the end, but it's too little, too late. The movie would have benefited greatly from some serious editing: build more suspense in the first half, and add more plot advancement to the second half, instead of taking them one at a time and completely switching gears halfway through.
DUMB PEOPLE DOING DUMB THINGS AGAIN
It's hard to believe that the man who wrote the screenplays for THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE GREEN MILE penned this overblown action movie. Frank Darabont's screenplay focuses on one Johnny Dell Grissom, a handsome young race driver, who has been saving his winnings so he could go to college and make something of his life. His father is an ex-con who runs a gas station and he's in love with the daughter of the local redneck sheriff, who doesn't want his Sarah Jane to have anything to do with his youngun. Sarah Jane is also desired by the sheriff's even redder deputy, Norm. As the movie opens, however, we meet a bunch of really vile prisoners who murder their guards and escape. Lo and behold, they run into the sheriff, kill him right in front of his daughter's eyes, but who gets the blame? Johnny, of course. From hereon, it's a chase movie, with some exciting chase scenes, but nothing new. All the main characters do dumb things that even make their actions dumber. Johnny and Norm for the most part. Patrick Muldoon brings his stoic, boyish charm to the role of Johnny, but it's not his most rewarding role; Amelia Heinle (Earth vs. the Spider) is credible as the kidnapped Sarah Jane; Jake Busey overplays Norm to the point of incredulity; Peter Greene as the nasty head villain is very good in his icy role; Kevin J. O'Connor reprises his whiny geek role he mastered in The Mummy; and Jeffrey DeMunn gives a good performance as Johnny's dad.
D.J. Caruso's direction is inconsistent; the pace slows; picks up; slows down again; it doesn't help this average movie.
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