After a drug deal goes wrong and some dirty cops end up dead, low–level mobster Joey has to dispose of the guns from the shootout. Things get complicated when his neighbor's young son snatches the gun and uses it to shoot his father. Once this happens, Joey has to race all night to find the kid, cover up the shooting, and get the gun back -- all while keeping both his own mob associates and the cops at bay.
Release Date: February 24, 2006 Studio: New Line Cinema Director: Wayne Kramer
Screenwriter: Wayne Kramer Starring: Paul Walker, Chazz Palminteri, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Johnny Messner, Alex Neuberger, Karel Roden, Ivana Milicevic, Bruce Altman, Elizabeth Mitchell Genre: Action, Drama MPAA Rating: R (for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content) Official Website: RunningScaredthemovie.com
MPAA: Rated R for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content. Runtime: 122 min
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM, and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG
SYNOPSIS
For over a decade Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) has successfully juggled his conflicting roles as both loving family man and a low-level employee of the Italian Perello mob in Grimley, New Jersey. However, when Joey ignores the mob’s explicit instructions to dispose of a gun used in the fatal shooting of a corrupt cop during a bungled drug buy, he unwittingly puts his entire family in immediate danger.
Joey stows this incriminating piece of evidence in his basement for possible future use as collateral against his employers, only to have his son’s best friend, Oleg (Cameron Bright), discover and abscond with the weapon. Unaware that the disappearance of this weapon could jeopardize both Joey and himself, Oleg uses it to wound his abusive stepfather Anzor (Karel Roden), the drug-addicted black sheep of the Russian Yugorsky mob, and then flees into the night. As he vainly seeks safe haven, Oleg encounters and dodges a slew of nocturnal miscreants, all the while being pursued by relentless Perello and Yugorsky henchmen as well as by the nefarious Detective Rydell (Chazz Palminteri), a corrupt cop who is hell-bent on profiting from the missing gun’s potentially disastrous effects on the already uneasy alliance between the rival Perello and Yugorsky clans.
Meanwhile, Joey, hot on Oleg’s trail and aided by both his wife Teresa (Vera Farmiga) and son (Alex Neuberger), has embarked on a frantic night-long search, not only to locate Oleg and the gun, but also to save his own life and street credibility by keeping the gun’s disappearance a secret from both mob factions.
From
the very beginning, we are drawn into a frighteningly violent
story where the dangers of bringing your work home with you
are much scarier than the average extra paperwork. Running
Scared’s frenetic cinematography sucks the audience
into a seamy, sordid world of mob violence and police corruption.
Through the eyes of two boys, best friends Nicky and Oleg, we watch
the downward spiral of Joey Gazelle, smalltime mobster, as he tries
to keep his occupation and his family separate. With that said,
I’m going to blow the ‘surprise’ ending in
the next sentence, so read on at your own risk!
— Continued
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