A film review by Karl Rackwitz (Berlin, Germany, 1997) Copyright 1997 Karl Rackwitz
---------------- RUNNING ON EMPTY ---------------- (USA 1987)
Director: Sidney Lumet Original Screenplay: Naomi Foner Director of Photography: Gerry Fisher Music: Tony Mottola Editor: Andrew Mondshein With River Phoenix, Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton, Jonas Abry, Ed Crowley, L.M. Kit Carson, Steven Hill, Augusta Dabney
Sidney Lumet is one of my favourite directors. It's not difficult to forget that some of his films aren't great ("The Appointment", "The Last of the Mobile Hotshots", "The Morning After", "A Stranger Among Us", "Guilty as Sin"), because there are many superb motion pictures among his films, like "Twelve Angry Men", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "The Pawnbroker", "Serpico", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Network", "Prince of the City", "The Verdict", the often underrated "Q & A" and this excellent drama "RUNNING ON EMPTY".
In 1971, when they were radical students, Arthur and Annie Pope (Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti) committed a bomb attack on a napalm laboratory to stop the war in Vietnam. Therefore they have been on the run for 15 years, chased by the FBI. Now they have two sons, 17-year-old Danny (River Phoenix) and 10-year-old Harry (Jonas Abry), who must share their parents' destiny. In the first scenes of the film the Pope family must again change home and identities - as many times before. Now Danny falls in love for Lorna Phillips (Martha Plimpton), the daughter of his music teacher (Ed Crowley), who discovers Danny's musical talent and gets him to apply for a study at Juilliard School. But that would destroy the family. Danny gets into an inner conflict. On the one hand there are his love to Lorna and his wish to live his own life. On the other hand he wants to support his adored parents. When they notice that conflict, they don't know what to do either.
With "RUNNING ON EMPTY" Sidney Lumet returns to the theme he has already treated in his film "Daniel" (1983). Lumet and his screenwriter Naomi Foner didn't want to make a political film in the first place. They wanted to show how children can be affected by the activities of their parents, and it's a film about the problems of families if the children want to leave home. Actually it would have been imaginable to treat this theme in front of a non-political background. But the political aspects enrich the film and stimulate us to discuss about what's more important: to change the world with dangerous actions or also to remember the consequences of these actions not only for one's own life, but for the lives of one's children too.
By his quiet and sensitive direction Sidney Lumet creates a high inner suspense. And all the actors are - as usual in a Lumet film - excellent, especially River Phoenix, who earned a well deserved Academy Award nomination for his masterful performance (maybe the best in his much too short life), and Christine Lahti. Another remarkable point is the well considered editing with an apt use of dissolves and cuts.
This is one of the best films I've seen up to now, a movie that you mustn't miss.
My rating: ***** out of ***** (A MASTERPIECE)
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