À bout de course

I saw this movie when it was first released on video and was astounded that it was not nominated for Best Picture over lesser fare like Working Girl. I was 14 at the time and the conclusion of the movie was the first time I ever cried while watching a film. It's been 16 years and only four other movies have had that affect on me (Shadowlands, Philadelphia, In America, Return of the King). Watching it with my wife tonight (her first time seeing it) and I still cried at the conclusion.

This movie, more than any other, even Stand By Me, makes me miss the adult actor that River Phoenix might have become. We have been lucky enough to see the fine actors that Sean Penn, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise have become, but River might have

surpassed them all. He most assuredly had the potential.

I have seen thousands of movies now, have devoted myself to watching every film by 100 great directors (even the horrible ones) and Sidney Lumet has rewarded me as I have re-watched such classics as Network, 12 Angry Men and Serpico, but this might be his best film. Christine Lahti's performance is letter on perfect and she should have won the Oscar (wasn't nominated). I am glad the Academy got the two most important nominations correct: River and the screenplay.

This is a perfect movie for teens as they can understand the growing pains that River's character is going through and a perfect movie for adults as well, as they can understand what is threatening to tear the family apart.

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.

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.

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.

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.