Aiden (Edouard Philipponnat) is just a teenager, but he has a reputation around town–and with his mother (Elisabeth Röhm)–as both a drug dealer and compulsive drug user. When one day he’s finally arrested for drug possession he finds himself in the middle of a police investigation–one that will threaten his livelihood. The authorities make Aiden a deal, and that deal includes him going undercover and attempting to take down Local Legend (Eric Balfour), a kingpin in the drug scene. Aiden will be tested like never before, and any chance that he might still have at a bright future now hangs in the balance. Aiden is The Runner.
In the grand scheme of the film it appears that The Runner is a film that takes place on the small scale (i.e. a local, small town drug dealer), but wants to be bigger. The film focuses on teenager Aiden and his series of escapades throughout the course of the film, but as the film moves toward its final act it expresses, slowly but surely, the purpose of the narrative–to catch the biggest drug dealer around. All of a sudden Aiden, a small fish in a now massive body of water, is forced to wade in the water among sharks–and, while I wouldn’t doubt things of this nature have occurred in the past–for the sake of The Runner, this doesn’t seem plausible. This feels out of the realm of normalcy for viewers, and it slowly becomes more and more difficult to buy into the narrative and the premise of the film as a whole. When a narrative is lost on me it starts to pick away at the rest of the film as well, causing the film to slowly lose vigor and fall away. In some ways this is the case with The Runner.
As Aiden falls further and further down the rabbit hole, what takes place seems less and less likely, and viewers are well aware of the fact that some instances of Aiden’s story are fabricated (fabricated in a way that doesn’t make sense) for The Runner. The world knows that things are altered–or simply written in a specific fashion–to better appeal to audiences in Hollywood, but when things like this try to be something they aren’t it causes the narrative to simply fail to live up to the expectations of everyone involved.
The narrative is the bad part (for the most part–there are instances of emotion sprinkled throughout The Runner that allow viewers to connect with Aiden, but never enough to get us hooked). Sound and lighting play a pivotal role in The Runner, and these are most certainly the good parts of the film. Without giving too much away, toward the end of the film what feels like a Project X style party breaks out, and, in many ways, it looks like the glorified raves seen on television. Beautiful women, endless libations, and music and lighting that nearly get attendees high. Music Supervisor Holly Amber Church and Gaffer Alberta de Costa Calla join forces to create something spectacular using light and sound–particularly in that aforementioned scene. The emotional pull of this act (because the majority of the second act is this scene) is unparalleled in the rest of The Runner, and it’s the film’s best opportunity to reel in viewers and give them a reason to stick around until the end. That’s exactly what happens. While drama pierces throughout the armor of this sometimes silly film, it’s the ability of the crew to make the second act so much fun that forces viewers to remain focused.
From a technical standpoint The Runner is developed with great vigor and precision–and I have no quarrels with the way in which sound, lighting, etc. play a role in the film. It’s the narrative that makes things difficult for the film, because in this small-scale film, the bigger picture seems impossible, unrealistic, and too far off the beaten path to appeal to viewers. The Runner presents moments of fun to the world, and it does enough to keep viewers entertained, but it certainly struggles throughout. In terms of filmmaking, this group of cast and crew is truly talented, but a more fine tuned narrative would have done wonders for the film.
Directed by Michelle Danner.
Written by Jason Chase Tyrrell.
Starring Edouard Philipponnat, Elisabeth Röhm, Nadji Jeter, Eric Balfour, Kerri Medders, Jessica Amlee, Tracy Melchior, Kyle Jones, Cameron Douglas, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½/10
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