À bout de course

A pair of anti-war radicals on the run with their nuclear family, Annie and Arthur Pope (Lahti and Hirsch) are answerable for a napalm laboratory bombing in the 70s (with one casualty of injury), designated as an anti-Vietnam war protestation, and have been lying low with new identities every once in a while henceforth, until their eldest son Danny (Phoenix) reaches 17, a watershed is laying out, some big decision needs to contemplate by both parties.

In Sidney Lumet's RUNNING ON EMPTY, River Phoenix starts his transition from child stardom to the perilous adult world, this is his only Oscar-nominated performance, although it is vexingly shunted to the supporting category as the default victim of the Academy's inherent bias towards tender-year performers or newcomers. Here, he is the bedrock of the movie, a piano prodigy in his making (hereditary from the mother side), but he cannot be forever cocooned in his family's unorthodox lifestyle, and the irony is pretty on the nose, this damning society is rife with all things against Annie and Arthur's counterculture tenets, yet in the context, there seems to be no better alternative at their disposal, making him a fugitive for something he hasn't perpetrated? That is just unfair, thus it is almost imperative that Danny must be released from the clutches albeit he is disposed to stick with the status quo in the end before bid farewell to his girlfriend Lorna (Plimpton, very good in her tomboyish, cool-girl complexion), whom he is besotted with.

There is certainly a waft of elitism in the air, Danny is wanted by Juilliard, so how can any compos mentis parents thumb their noses at that proposition, which leaves them no choice but to cut their deeply bonded familial cord, it is very intriguing if there is a sequel to cover Danny's grown-up years, to see whether his parents' sacrifice is worthwhile. Apart from that, it is a thoroughly judicious melodrama and Lumet's low-key directorial gesture successfully elicits Phoenix's most touching persona as a youngster on the cusp of adulthood, whose caring nature is torn between the obligation to his family and a new world suddenly opens to him.

The whole close-knit cast has done a cracking job, Judd Hirsch, although one can hardly condone that him and Phoenix are cutting from the same family tree from their physical appearances, pulls off an earnest father and an activist with ardor, whereas, Christine Lahti is viscerally sublime in her Janus-faced versatility: checking the scenes where Annie pseudo-cavalierly converses with Danny's teacher and later a lachrymose tête-à-tête with her own father for the first time in 15 years, that is the testimonial.

Sensibly filleting the more sensitive political agenda (there are worms in their noble cause too) which is concomitant with the story-line, RUNNING ON EMPTY is in essence a well-meaning, good-natured encomium of family value and altruistic sacrifice, only its rushed finale (at least the logistics team could have packed some items in their departing truck considering they are fleeing from the place for keeps), hits like a fly in the ointment in a hearty 80s tale, incidentally, if the same story happens in a CCTV-rampant age like today, the family's fly-by-night endeavor will definitely not last such a protracted length to even face their offspring's growing pains.

Running on Empty

First of all, what a great performance by River Phoenix. In fact, there are smart, convincing, warm performances by all the main cast. At first you might feel this is a movie about a couple on the lam for a long-ago crime, and that they happened to have two kids. But really the opening of the movie, an inside view from Phoenix's character's situation, makes clear that he is the start, and the fulcrum, around which the rest of the characters swing. So the movie ends up being an interpersonal drama, and you sympathize with everyone, even if they have done a "bad" thing. This is open to your judgement, for sure...a 1960s radical sentiment on the part of the left leaning director, Syndey Lumet, who had the early uber-classic "12 Angry Men" as well as "Serpico" and many others. It was Lumet who drew me to the film, but it was Phoenix who stole the show (and who breaks your heart knowing how young he committed suicide). Look for the kind of classic filming and editing you'd expect from this well-schooled director. It's a warm film, and it avoids pretentiousness and artifice, turning instead to the innate abilities of the actors, including a young Marth Plimpton. Plimpton is wonderful, and she is given some classic lines, funny and perceptive just as you'd expect this kind of girl to be. (Plimpton was in another movie with Phoenix, "The Mosquito Coast," two years earlier.) So watch this, for sure. It was nominated for a ton of awards, and overcomes what seems to be a contrived, tightly focussed impossibility of a plot and makes it work. Very well!

The best reason to watch this film is of course the performance by River Phoenix, which now that he's dead, we will never know if he could have topped this. He was one of the youngest actors ever nominated for an Oscar. Another reason to watch the film is Christine Lahti from Chicago Hope who gives her best screen performance here. She won the Los Angeles Film Critic's award for Best Actress of 1988 and received a Golden Globe nomination but unfortunately she must have just missed when they announced who the five finalists were for the Oscar. She has two scenes in this film where she just tore my heart out, including one with Steven Hill from Law And Order who plays her father. The movie did get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and made many top ten lists, including Roger Ebert's. Although it wasn't a box office hit, I believe it will be remembered as one of Director Sidney Lumet's best films and certainly the best one to watch if you want to remember why the talented actor River Phoenix's death was so tragic.

Why this has an average rating of only 7.3 is beyond me. This is really darn good, maybe not a "masterpiece" as some of the other reviews have stated, but one of those criminally underrated and overlooked movies. And, heck, starring River Phoenix for crying out loud. Why had I never heard of it? Yeah, it's got a touch of cheesy '80s things about it (music, clothing, etc.) but I've learned to overlook that sort of thing if it's actually a good story. Take this and another coming-of-age movie, _This Boy's Life_ (starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio -- why hadn't I ever heard of that one either?), and you have a couple of the best great-but-underrated movies in recent memory. I'd love a good explanation for why this should only get a 7.3 out of 10, given the quality of a bunch of material with a higher average rating. (I thought 6.9 was the average rating here. This isn't even close to just average.) Compared to the body of Sidney Lumet's work, this has got to rank right up near the top, doesn't it?

This is a fantastic movie. Definitely one of the 5 best I've seen in recent memory. Someone that wrote a review here felt that the two parents are placed upon a pedestal by the film makers, but I don't think this is the case at all. They are accountable for their actions and know what they did was wrong. They have to pay for their actions throughout their lives and will likely turn themselves in as soon as they can be assured that their kids will be safe. The kids are the ones I feel sorry for, not the parents.

I think the main point of the movie is to make people aware of how the actions/decisions they make can hurt other people, including themselves. People often make rash decisions without thinking about the long term consequences their actions cause for themselves and other people.