| Night Of The Running Man (1994) Cast:Scott Glenn,Andrew McCarthy,Janet Gunn,John Glover,Wayne Newton When a taxi-driver(McCarthy) finds a briefcase with a million dollars in it he runs to start a new life, unfortunately the money belongs to the mob and two assassins have been sent to track him down and get the money back in this brutal yet admittedly well acted thriller. This is worth watch only for the performance of Scott Glenn and John Glover, here are two bad guys so fascinatingly well acted that it's doubtful to find a more convincing bunch of villians out there, these are guys literly you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley and Lester wisely develops these characters with more screen time than usual. On the hero side of things, McCarthy is adequate but nothing really special, his performance simply holds no attention when compared to Glenn and Glover. The story itself is nothing but really a chase where McCarthy tries to escape the wrath of Glenn, only to find that he's outsmarted at almost every level, normally this would make for a tedious experience but Lester's puts so much energy into the hunt, that we never really mind that the hero makes stupid mistakes, as it goes on McCarthy's character actually makes a few smart decisions but is always one-upped by Glenn. Lester also interestingly enough adds in a nightmare like atmposphere where everything is colorful and yet a certain dread hangs over the picture. That's why Scott Glenn and John Glover are so helpful, they make no bones about the threat being real , so when the movie ended, I found myself astonished by the sheer brutality of it all.D.Mark L. Lester***1/2 |