Review of Running Time (1997) by Ron S — 02 Jun 2009

Most of this film is actually pretty engrossing.

A tribute to Hitchcock's The Rope, this film is shot in seemingly one shot, telling the story of a man getting out of jail and pulling a heist.

The one shot idea is gimmicky for sure, and become frustrating, yet really lends a realist feeling to the story. The realism, although is altered since it's shot in black and white and Bruce Campbell performance is reminiscent of a leading man of the '40s, giving this film a real sort of classical Hollywood B-Movie feel. Yet despite Bruce, everything else takes place in the present. This, however works and creates a pretty compelling film... until the last 20minutes.

The last bit of the film finds Bruce Campbell and the "lead" female "acting", giving back story and building a romance out of nowhere. The romance isn't very logically built, as Bruce doesn't remember her for most of the movie only for his memory to be jogged by an element of their past to reveal that he had this great love for her. One could say it's not well sold, and when these actors need to to the kind of acting that is needed for the scene, they fall short. The inclusion of music in spot isn't great and stands out like a sore thumb, when no music would have sufficed.

Either was, this is a great experiment, that I really enjoyed the hell out of for the most part.