Unfortunately, throughout my stay, it is clear that I couldn’t have fun in a real sense, only the villain J.K. Simmons had it and that’s it. However, there is more to talk about here, as the movie does have interesting aspects thanks to Simmons, who, due to the context of the project, still doesn’t seem like he’s able to let loose, at least, not until the very end of the picture. After all, Simmons is a great actor and has a lot of great stuff, but I’d be kidding if I said that I wasn’t bored most of the time. Again, it is hard to see how people managed to shoot a good film in such a mundane environment.
Now, to give credit when it’s due, ‘You Can’t Run Forever’ starts with a bang, but this in itself is unfortunately a harbinger of tonal issues to come. Simmons’s Wade arrives at a gas station located in the middle of nowhere just as a couple outside a convenience store gets into an altercation with a guy who is yelling at his little dog. He approaches the dog owner and eventually shoots the dog owner and the couple and drives off. There’s something wrong with him. Movie Villain type of deranged. In one of the scenes, he touches himself while staring at a picture of the guy’s wife whom he has just murdered. There is also a ‘You Can’t Run Forever’ that goes on like High Tension or Martyrs, a straight forward take on its message of extreme violence.
Have you ever felt that a movie had the potential to become something big only to lose it because of its director? In the case of Michelle Schumacher, her timetable feels pretty clear, “I need to finish this film”. Because despite watching this film where Simmons can do absolutely nothing constructive and just gets caught up in an incoherent mess of a film. The film really gets started when Wade encounters Eddie (Allen Leech) and his stepdaughter Miranda (Isabelle Anaya). Wade kills the former and sends the young woman into the pretentious woods to survive. At home a very pregnant Jenny (Fernanda Urrejola) is panicking, and meanwhile the utterly hopeless local cops are struggling to make sense of what seem to be the very first assaults out there there is nothing funnier in this film than seeing an utterly useless deputy attempting to read about etiquette for crime scene investigation Wade is wading through the thickets hunting Miranda. It is yet another variant of ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ but it is not.
And at that rate, it is not. Schumacher and co-writer Carolyn Carpenter do not even believe in the premise ‘predator vs. prey’ that they devised, as they often ruin any suspense by cutting to a distressed Jenny or the cops trying to solve the case of an unknown predator in their town.
The story crumbles some more as flashbacks attempt to show Wade in a positive light. This film would benefit from a psychopathic victim who does not have priorities. However, such a linear thriller requires good faith in actors and collaborators from editors to cinematographers who turn the nuance into a frightening atmosphere. “You Can’t Run Forever” has no suspense at all. More like a joke, it is a project that would actually fall apart on its own were it not for the Academy winner at the core of it.
For that Oscar-winning performance, he is simply a cut above the rest, both literally and figuratively, and it is difficult not to get pleasure at the fact. Every choice that Simmons makes is filled with such details the glimpse of fury within his eyes, the sadistic grin that appears when he knows he’s in control, this extraordinary aura of threat. In the back, Simmons’ scene partners have no intention to follow him, taking this profession amateur situation to the next level, which is very uncomfortable, like a game where the all star competes against a rank and file. Schumacher has little choice other than to resort to the most basic devices to try to shift the emphasis to her star, including the use of the tired device of suicide, the threat of an actor, who propelled through childbirth, but Simmons is not perturbed by such petty matters. He is literally about a dozen steps ahead of the film at maximum.
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