If it were given to someone, and the person in question could not do anything to change it, when would they be able to die? It’s not the first time this hypothetical has been put forward and certainly it must have led some to some debates over the forthcoming years, and without some temporal restraint has served as story line yarn of many motion pictures in one way or the other, Cléo from 5 to 7 and Eternity and a Day cited as examples. We can add Running on Empty (2024) to that list, and while it is not even close to any of these older masterpieces regarding the quality or significance of the story, this newer movie with such an impressive cast has more than it needs to offer from the very beginning.
The eyes of a bllesund enfant terrible at certain times, a writer-director Daniel Andre, produces an enduringly thin-earth romcom that slingshots a lot of theatrical elements to the so-called wall and watches which elements stick and which are left to tumble away harmlessly. But it’s not really an ordinary movie. Maybe it was a creatively crazy film, which in and of itself deserves praise considering the time.
Allow me to just touch upon the ‘here’s when you die’ trope just one more time, which is employed within that subgenre dramedy 50/50 (2011) where Joseph Gordon-Levitt, while undergoing a life-threatening illness, gets to break up with his girl all ironical wellness story style and then never plans to make up. A parallel cut off takes place in Running on Empty after a millennial mortuary technician called Mort (Keir Gilchrist), funnily enough, attempts to purchase a home with the woman wen he loves named Nicole (Francesca Eastwood). Which makes them undergo some test of the new world where one is supposed to provide potential â– Albert’s death certificate for an insurance company. When there is less than a year left until Mort dies, Nicole jumps ship even at the embarrassing thought of those former curse words – once more the family heroes have to take it apart very unpleasant ways like in 50/50. Ouch.
One may guess if already assuming that Lionsgate’s — this is their offering— in the title of which for some reason suggests a movie about cars, explains the need of the River Phoenix remake, or is concerned with the documentary of Jackson Browne —over-the-top was in the attempt to borrow and or pay homage to some past hit comedy-dramas in a bid to maintain its own. For the female audience, some of it works as bit parts are portrayed by famous character actors like Rhys Coiro Entourage in bit roles. Here he’s Simon, a gangster-want-to-be-pimp who messes with our hero’s life even more when Mort’s ‘life after ex’ includes strip clubs and sex workers.
And on that note, the hallucination sequence, which has comic neo-noir qualities, concerns the one sex worker that Mort feels attracted to, who by sheer luck, happens to have Rick’s death day, not long after she meets him. It sends him to a crazy path through the San Fernando Valley of California from the after-confession of his employers who seek revenge on Mort for the death of the woman assuming Mort is the one responsible for it.
Mort finds himself looking for some existential answers from his rather caring uncle Barry (a consistently funny Jim Gaffigan) and his loud friend Sid (Jay Pharoah who makes little impact on the screen for he appears for so short a time) while in the end he seeks a professional contact service for ‘the one’ in the few remaining days he has.
It is, perhaps, no coincidence that Mort starts feeling that sort of emotion for Kate who is, after all, the person in charge of the dating service. The fact that this comes so darn late in the film is supreme oddity and disappointment. We last heard about Hale during the promotions of a more unconventional romantic comedy to which she had a supporting appearance, Which Brings Me to You, which proved a more fruitful outing for the young star. Hale is still the centre of the plot and makes us remember that Running on Empty is a very brave attempt to create a story about life somewhere in the near future, but, sadly, full of doubts. Only the sad thing is that this branding gets so confusing in the process.
Gilchrist, on the other hand, makes the entire time feel strangely constrained, barring a few sequences which are just a case of too much overacting. He appears just as baffled in this respect as most likely viewers will be, when they will wonder at certain plot threads which are eventually rendered completely moot. One gets a sense that some of the scenes like that of recovering Nicole and just narrating it are just there for the sake of the joke and now we go and forget about it. The comedy fails to enhance the story.
Without a doubt, the British-Canadian Gilchrist is filled with talent and can definitely back them up with the popular Netflix series Atypical and successful movies like It Follows. Here, he sturdy enough plays the bewildered prude, but it leaves us with a feeling that we still have no definitive character from the headspinning actor. He does inject some heart and at least some comic timing, but Running on Empty feels like it carries an unarticulated defeatist attitude that this disjointed cast is just a hot mess. Running on Empty distributed by Lionsgate is available in theaters.
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