The Premise: When Your Vegas Trip Turns into a Manhunt
Imagine if The Fugitive and Ferris Bueller had a love child, and then that kid got stuck in a B-movie casino thriller where nobody wins — not even the audience. That’s Run, a film where Patrick Dempsey goes from slick college kid to wanted fugitive in the time it takes to finish a poker hand. It’s a chase movie, pure and simple, but the only thing being chased harder than Dempsey is the ghost of a better script.
The Plot: Bad Luck, Worse Decisions
Charlie Farrow (Dempsey) is just your average college student/mechanic who gets sent on an errand to deliver a Porsche to Atlantic City. Already sounds shady. Once there, he ends up at a casino, gets into a fight with the local mobster’s hothead son, and accidentally kills him in self-defense. Cue the sirens and cue the entire corrupt town wanting Charlie’s head on a pike.
From there, it’s 90 minutes of running. Through casinos, alleys, kitchens, parking garages — if there’s a hallway, Dempsey’s booking it through it like he’s late for finals. He doesn’t have time to breathe, let alone develop a personality.
Patrick Dempsey: Sprinting Toward Credibility
Dempsey, still rocking that early-’90s curly mop and boyish charm, tries hard to convince us he’s a man on the edge. The problem is, Charlie reacts to most life-threatening events with the energy of a guy trying to find the nearest food court. There are moments where you buy his panic, but other times it feels like someone told McDreamy to act like he’s in a deodorant commercial — slightly sweaty but still photogenic.
He runs well, though. Olympic-level cardio. Give the man a gold medal in cardio-based acting.
Kelly Preston: Tragically Underused
Kelly Preston shows up halfway through as Karen Landers, a sympathetic blackjack dealer who helps Charlie despite having zero reason to. Her character is thinly written — basically “hot woman with a heart of gold and maybe a death wish” — but Preston brings enough warmth to keep you mildly interested. Still, the script does her no favors. She deserves more than being an afterthought with good cheekbones.
The Mobsters: Saturday Morning Villains with Guns
The bad guys in Run aren’t exactly the Corleones. These mobsters operate with all the subtlety of a Three Stooges episode. They’re loud, sloppy, and seem shocked that someone would fight back when trying to kill them. The film tries to paint them as menacing, but half the time they look like they got lost on the way to an America’s Most Wanted re-enactment.
The Direction: Like a Music Video on Too Much Caffeine
Director Geoff Burrowes shoots everything like he’s terrified you’ll get bored. Quick cuts, jittery close-ups, overblown lighting — it’s a chase film for people with attention spans shorter than a sneeze. There’s a surprising amount of action, but not a lot of variety. After the fifth narrow escape, you start rooting for someone — anyone — to catch a breath or a bullet.
The Humor: Unintentional but Plentiful
There’s an underlying absurdity to Run that can’t be ignored. Like how every police officer in Atlantic City is apparently on the mob’s payroll. Or how Charlie seems to teleport from disaster to disaster without ever stopping to pee. And let’s not forget the big “emotional” moments between Charlie and Karen that feel like they were written during a coffee break on the set of a soap opera.
And Dempsey, bless him, has the face of a guy who can’t believe he’s being shot at — which, to be fair, might be how the actor felt filming this.
The Verdict: A Serviceable Sprint, But Not a Destination
Run isn’t a terrible movie — it’s just aggressively average. It wants to be a high-stakes thriller, but it’s more like a decent TV movie that escaped to theaters. You don’t hate it, but you also won’t remember it. If you’re a die-hard Patrick Dempsey fan or have a soft spot for early-’90s B-thrillers, it might be worth a watch.
Everyone else? Don’t walk. Don’t run. Maybe jog in place and keep this one on in the background while folding laundry.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5 Running Shoes
(+1 for Preston, -1 for realism, +0.5 for Dempsey’s hair surviving every stunt without a scratch)