The Runners

The Bad Guy had skills - NO ONE else had skills. SWAT command was a joke. Soldiers seemed to be very easy to head fake. The legion of bad guys forming the kill box had more rounds than accuracy - must have had 5000 round magazines !! With that much lead flying you would have expected the fight to be over in 15 seconds - but it drug on, and on, and on... I'd say the movie was FRUSTRATING times 10.

...when a filmmaker wears too many hats, it's usually a flop. But this film had two filmmakers wearing every hat, and for a B-grade film, it wasn't too shabby.

Joey Loomis and Micah Lyons were mostly both producers, directors, actors, editors, casting, visuals and writer. It was a good story in general, but it certainly had writing and technical issues with amateurish plot lapses in the screenplay. The sound was mainly off - perhaps someone forgot the boom mics. Directing was decent, and the cinematography good, but some actors needed better character direction from the directors, including the directors.

Although flawed with some cheesy scenes, the 94 min runtime and good pacing with decent action and suspense, had me glued to the screen. Never mind the bogus 9 and 10/10's or the troll 1/10's, it's an honest and generous B-graded 7/10 from me.

Micah Lyons ("Ryan") has to head to Mexico to rescue his recently kidnapped little sister before she becomes embroiled in the drug-fuelled sex trade. Quickly adopting the kind of ninja skills that would flatten an entire army, he manages to overwhelm just about everyone as he races to her side. The acting, dialogue and storyline in general are all the stuff of a college project. Lyons appears to have done all but make the coffee, and as is frequently the case when the star/director has no sense of objectivity, what is produced is a messy, ill-conceived story with more plot holes than a Dutch cheese. There isn't the slightest degree of jeopardy anywhere and the adventure - such as it is - seems to be based on the premiss that he is the only one who has the remotest chance of hitting what he aims at, despite being constantly out-numbered, out-positioned and out-gunned. It's a labour of love for a very mediocre star working with an equally unremarkable script and supporting cast. Nothing to see here, really, even if you are a fan of the genre.

The actors, characters, storyline, dialogue & screenplay all lacked any vestige of credibility. A truly terrible movie.

I didn't really know what I was expecting when I watched "The Runners" from directors Joey Loomis and Micah Lyons, aside from knowing that I would be in for a movie that was based upon some sex trafficking thing.

Well, I will say that the movie definitely started out nice enough and there was actually some good enough entertainment value to the movie. And the storyline was adequate, albeit it was somewhat generic and essentially was much akin to most other movies that involve sex trafficking. But then suddenly there was a Mexican drug cartel involved, and the movie just went from being adequate to becoming over-the-top. It was simply just too much at that point.

It should be said that the acting performances in the movie were adequate, taking into consideration the premise of the movie and the script that the actors and actresses were given to work with.

"The Runners" was ultimately a mediocre movie, I have to say. It proved to be entertaining enough for what it was, but this was by no means a memorable or outstanding movie experience.

I am rating "The Runners" a very mediocre five out of ten stars. While I did finish the movie, this is hardly a movie that warrants a second viewing in my opinion, as the movie just lacked solid contents to do so.

Good enough entertainment for a single viewing if you have nothing better at hand to watch.