What’s life’s final curtain call for me? Would it shock you if I told you it’s a very complex thought? Nerve-wracking & terrifying perhaps, mess your day up for years, or perhaps just make you feel like taking a long nap. For example, you may be informed that you have seventy years to live. If anything, that is good news. On the other hand, you could also be told that you would only be alive for another twelve months–before you get to say ‘I do’ or travel the world. It is a tough world isn’t it, wake up and smell the coffee or simply do that while staring at the clock? What is someone like Mortimer the mortician supposed to do in those circumstances?
“Running on Empty” (which shouldn’t be confused with the superior film by Sidney Lumet or the same-posited song by Jackson Browne) is placed in almost a humorous premise, and then completely falls apart as soon as the first of many irreparably recycled jokes show up, as well as unimaginative stiff performance of actors who seemed to recognize this film was deceased even before production began, lifeless and superficial conversations that should have never been recorded, such as the duration of nearly 1 hour and 30 minutes that should have taken place in a coffee shop.
Moving forward with the movie, which was somewhat breath-taking at some point, it turns out there isn’t much to enjoy besides the premise and the conclusion of the movie is just too slow from the start dragging, with a summer’s lethargy, like a funeral that will not end.
One example is Mortimer (Keir Gilchrist), a mortician sorry, a funeral director living in the San Fernando Valley and working with his slightly insane uncle Barry (Jim Gaffigan) in the family establishment. After Mort and his hot virgin fiancé, Nicole Eastwood, buy a house, the two go to a clinic to determine how long it will be until they are dead. The good news for Nicole is that she’s not expected to kick the bucket in a long time. The bad news for Mort is that he has been given a death sentence of less than twelve months. Because he was too passive, Nicole leaves him, forcing him to embark on an aimless voyage aimed at making the most of his last moments on Earth. He comes across things on the road such as a sympathetic Kate played by Lucy Hale and a cruel thug Simon (Rhys Coiro) who always comes back to oust Mort for more cash.
The plot is majorly the most interesting part of the movie however, as Mort’s misadventures start to accumulate rapidly, like rounds of excruciatingly uncomfortable speed dating with the least desirable bachelorettes in Los Angeles and the tiresome chain of Simon’s paying him unnecessary visits, it is understandable as to how the appeal begins to fade when so much of Mort’s limited time on this earth slips away. André has to find some funny attribute in the monotonous tasks which involves enduring multiple bad dates because he wanted to craft the character as one who continuously has the same bad day over and over. Although “Running on Empty” does seem to have some resemblance to the style of Martin Scorsese’s work in After Hours, it completely lacks the urgency of energy and originality that could make Mort’s race against the clock and the idea of death among other things urgent or significant for that matter.
When Gilchrist plays Mort, he appears to be very tone deaf to the nature of his character’s circumstances. Somehow, from the way he delivers his lines, even during his most heated or annoyed times, they still read flat almost like there is barely a heartbeat. I don’t know whether the writers intended for the main character to be irritatingly flat in times of humor or whether it was bad writing that made Gilchrist lose hope on bringing the character to life. He looked bored and so did I.
It is the case with Nicole that she is also by design, a rather two-dimensional character. However, Kate on the other hand is a straightforward Ramona Flowers with no emotional depth or any self-actualization.
But somehow Hale manages to inject fun in the story, which even Gaffigan’s Barry or Jay Pharoah as Sid in case of Mort’s co-worker is unable to do. While everyone else seems to have a strong case of sleep foot as the cast, she has an upbeat and bubbly personality. It doesn’t change the fact that the movie or the conversations in it want to be saved. But it’s something.
The gaping hole however is that ‘Running on Empty’ is yet another of those bombed comedies that’s marked with the words ‘potential, but never made it’. MAYBE id help if they focused on the plot and not embarrassing punchlines. The direction is laughable, there’s some ridiculous style of humor, the dialogue included cringe inducing phrases like “Simon says…” and, somehow, my patience was on the verge of evaporating. It seems that “Running on Empty” fits just like its name suggests; not much to enjoy.
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