À bout de course

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.

When I was 16, I used to hang out with a tough crowd and my best friend at the time was a real trouble maker, we would always get into fights with other guys our age and sometimes men, and he was a really tough kid, anyway one night he calls me and tells me that he watched the saddest movie he had ever seen, he said it was the first time he actually cried since he saw E.T. I was laughing at him continuously, until I watched it and got so profoundly effected by it that even thinking about that last scene makes my eyes water. I really feel that this film was a major catalyst for many changes I made during my progression from teenager to young adult.

Running on Empty is quite an achievement in filmmaking, it is as real a film as you could watch and everyone involved should be absolutely proud of it. River Phoenix will forever be missed.

I am not gonna say too much, but this is one of the best movies ever made, River Phoenix, deserved the award a lot more than Kevin Kline. Maybe River was young and they thought he will have many other chances to do it, unfortunately you never know and now River is no longer with us. So I think that the members of the Academy should consider this, like when Leo DiCaprio was nominated for Gilbert Grape. Anyway, this is a MUST see movie, it´s definitely a classic!

I have dozens of movies on videotape, but if I could only keep one, Running on Empty would be it. I've lost count how many times I've watched it. It works on every level. Emotionally, you cannot help caring about the characters, all of them. The premise, living "underground" in ordinary American suburbia, is brilliant and instantly engaging. The story, coming of age on the lam, flows effortlessly, with hardly a slow spot, and keeps me engaged, even after umpteen viewings. The romance, of love and loss and dedication, brings a tear every time, even just thinking about the birthday party as I write this.

Plus -- I was a 'red diaper baby' who became a conservative republican 35 years ago, and this film touches every button of my past. A lot of those reds were, in person, truly decent people, just a bit deranged and extremely delusional and dogmatic, all of which Judd Hirsch conveys with perfect pitch. No special FX, pretty tame action (mostly involving music and dancing), only six main characters, but a great entertaining and inspirational film.

Rated 9.9 out of 10, in case something better ever comes along.

P.S. I just got the DVD. Even better than the tape. Elsewhere I have read complaints about its technical quality, but I can see nothing wrong with it.

I thought this was a powerful movie about '60s radicals on the lam for 14 years and a crisis that develops when the family's 17-year-old son is talented enough to enter Juliard School Of Music which means , because of identity problems, they may never see him again. Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play the husband and wife and River Phoenix and Jonas Abry are their kids.

There is excellent acting in this film and particularly by young Phoenix. The story shows us a good portrait of what it must be like to live in hiding. Politically, people will view this movie as they think (conservative or liberal) because it could be viewed a number of ways.

To me, it showed the worst of what could have happened to young people in the '60s who believed they were doing the right thing but broke the law....and paid the consequence. The sad part, as this shows so vividly, is how it affects the rest of the family and others. I think the most powerful scene in the film is when Lahti meets her dad after 14 years in hiding: very, very emotional stuff and one of the most intense short talking scenes I've ever seen on film.