The Runner: A Steaming Pile of Shrimp

The Runner is a Cage movie that rightfully flew under everybody’s radars. The movie — which is the first feature-length film written and directed by producer Austin Stark - staggers and stumbles and lingers, but never quite finds a foothold in any of the multitude of stories it’s trying to tell.

Nicolas Cage plays Colin Pyrce, a fictional Louisiana politician dealing with the aftermath of the real BP oil spill of 2010. As he is trying to find justice for the shrimp fishermen who were affected by the spill, he is also embroiled in a sex scandal in which he had sex with the “black wife of a black fisherman,” a line uncomfortably shoe-horned in by co-star Wendell Pierce. After resigning in the midst of the scandal, he opens a non-profit where he continues his work attempting to help the fishermen.

I watched this movie for what I was positive was two hours, and when I checked my phone, I was legitimately shocked and frustrated that only an hour had gone by. This movie is fucking boring. There’s an ever-present generic eerie lone guitar playing in the background for about 90% of the movie. The plot is tossed from political issues to personal scandals to quickly abandoned racial commentary to alcoholism and back and forth and back and forth without any real point. There isn’t even a single fucking Cage Scream.

This movie sets out to do something, but never really explains what it is, and I don’t think the movie did what it wanted to. The cast is decently talented, featuring Wendell Pierce (The Wire), Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story), and Peter Fonda. However, this solid pool of talent is poorly used by the writer/director. The actors fumble through awkwardly phrased dialogue that doesn’t communicate well between the characters or the viewer.

We do hit a solid seven Cagemarks, though.

We get multiple instances of shirtlessness, one point where he shaves, a bizarre and bizarrely delivered story about a dream he had, ridiculous bouts of screaming emotion, unenthusiastic chuckles, a whole lotta running, and kissing three different women, including a startling cut from a Cajun barbecue to a shot of Nic Cage boning down on Sarah Paulson.

Strangely, we’re missing the Cage Scream and describing violence, two Cagemarks which have been in every other film I’ve watched so far.

I really didn’t feel this one. It’s not so-bad-it’s-good territory, it’s just straight up bad. Nic Cage is always at his best when he’s playing a character who is in one way or another unhinged, and this character is fully fucking hinged. Hard pass. This is definitely at the very bottom of my list for the time being.

May his hairpiece awkwardly cover the top and back of our head but not the forehead and most of the sides,

Nat.