RUNNING FREE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
Yada, yada, yada.
Sergei Bodrov's RUNNING FREE is a stunningly majestic motion picture that is almost completely undermined by it's loquacious narrator, a horse named Lucky. Jeanne Rosenberg's script spoils the sumptuous visuals by rarely letting the horse give us a moment of peace so we can savor the feast set before our eyes. Trying to enjoy RUNNING FREE is like watching LAWRENCE OF ARABIA with a precocious preteen who feels obligated to share his trite thoughts with you at every moment. No matter how obvious the scene, the kid feels duty bound to explain it to you anyway.
And whereas Caroline Thompson's BLACK BEAUTY had the richly emotive voice of Alan Cumming, which she use sparingly as the voice of the horse, RUNNING FREE features non-stop and remarkably bland narration by Lukas Haas.
The minimal story concerns horses sent from Europe to work as beasts of burden in the mines in the harsh South African desert just before the outbreak of World War I. As the title suggests, the horses will eventually break free. You could probably figure out the horses' desires, but motor mouth Lucky spells it out for you anyway. "I was born to run free and wild," he tells us. "No one taught this to me." So just in case you thought that running free is covered in horse school, you now know that it isn't.
Sometimes, thankfully, Lucky stops to catch his breath. In these truly lucky moments, we can soak in the marvelous images: dust blowing across the sand dunes, a train cutting through the golden wilderness, a young colt emerging soaked from having to swim in the ocean and a native girl scurrying barefoot across rust-colored sand. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen uses a gorgeous sepia-toned palette to evoke a warm nostalgic feel.
But mainly Lucky talks and talks and talks. "This boy had a gentle touch," Lucky tells us the obvious, as he is stroked by Richard (Chase Moore), the stable boy who found the half-starved colt abandoned in a boxcar. "I felt I could trust him." Later, as he chases after Richard on a train, Lucky says, "I suddenly realized that they were taking my boy from me." Yet another example of something we could have figured out on our own, and another instance when you want to scream at the screen to "shut up already!"
Besides telling us what we already know, Lucky likes to play the philosopher. "It wasn't only in the stables that the world was unfair," he remarks on seeing horses used solely for their horsepower.
If the sound system should fail in your theater, just pray that no one else will complain. Without the voices, RUNNING FREE would probably be absolutely wonderful. I'll never know since, I'm sorry to say, our speakers performed flawlessly.
RUNNING FREE runs 1:22. It is rated G and would be fine for all ages.
My son Jeffrey, age 11, seemed fairly unenthusiastic about the movie, but he said that he gave it *** because he really likes animals.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
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