Run (Blu-ray Review)
Set in the streets of New York City, RUN is a fast-paced, 3D crime thriller that follows the life of Daniel Lombardi – a troubled seventeen year old who nomadically moves from city to city with his father and utilizes Parkour to commit crimes in order to survive. Daniel soon uncovers his father’s dark past that ultimately led to their life on the run. As he gets pulled deeper into an unsuspecting world of crime, Daniel is forced to put everything he holds dear on the line, including the love of his life who has secrets of her own.
Film 
Parkour aka “free running” in some circles has made a comeback. Granted, some would argue that it never went away. In the new film Run Daniel (William Moseley) and his father Mike (Adrian Pasdar) are thieves on the run from the mob. They move from city to city, state to state. After one of Daniel’s heists go wrong his father insists on moving them back to New York to hopeful settle the score with the local crime boss played by Eric Roberts.
Daniel ends up enrolling in the local high school where there’s an unofficial parkour team and quickly joins their crew. So much for a low profile, I guess. By nigh he is still thieving for his father and breaking into jewelry stores for loot. He uses his skills to break into shops and uses his skills to literally outrun the police on the rooftops and through alleys.
There are two to three simultaneous plot points going on in Run. You have the concerned father trying to settle past debts with scary mobsters, young Daniel trying to adapt to high school life, and finally parkour. Parkour is the sport where extremely athletic young folk use to their bodies to propel themselves forward to reach their destination. They are in constant movement and use their environments to propel themselves. They are always in motion while everything around them is not. It’s actually pretty cool.
The one and only thing that works in a film like Run is obviously the parkour stunts. Ten years later and the fad that started in Europe are still as entertaining as ever to view. What doesn’t work in Run is the made-for-television subplot of mobsters and making the wrong things right. There are several scenes in Run where they almost frame Daniel as some sort of “Parkour Avenger” down to the black mask and hoodie he wears when parkouring. It’s silly and doesn’t work. There are many more clichés running (pardon the pun) rampant throughout the film but I don’t have a lot of space to list them.
Run is ambitious but crams too much into what should have been something simple. Run would have been better as a documentary or to have had Luc Besson involved. To date District B13 and District 13: Ultimatum are the best films that have showcased the best use of parkour. Run doesn’t even come close.
*We only reviewed the 2-D version of the film.
Video
Run is presented in 1080p, 1.85:1 opened up slightly to 1.78:1, widescreen. As with the current the flock of releases from Millennium they say “full frame” on the back. Please don’t confuse this with full frame 1.33:1. Apparently Run was filmed with some RED cameras but you’d be pretty hard pressed to tell. Set interiors like in people’s homes or areas that are really tight fare the worst but really open up in outside environments. Flesh tones are natural and never flush and black levels remain crush free. Softness does creep up more often than not and color banding was only visible in one awful CGI sequence that had flames shoot out towards the screen and viewer. I reckon it was enhanced for the 3-D version. It looked lame in 2-D.
Audio
Run is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. The sound quality on this Blu-ray picks up the pace that left behind by the video score. Dialogue is clean and clear, with no audible distractions. The pulse pounding electronic score takes front and center and really wraps the viewer in a trance-infused blanket. The film has several action scenes and those come off without a hitch. Gunfire is clean and loud and the surround sound channels are used for optimal effects. The subwoofer also got a great workout during those scenes featuring the cool musical score. I like that Millennium is sticking to Dolby TrueHD for all of its Blu-ray releases. They’re pretty awesome.
Extras
Run was this close to getting itself a coveted goose egg but was saved (barely) by the 5-minute featurette on the making of the film. William Moseley and Kelsey Chow talk about the film and we see some filming in action That’s pretty much it.
- The Making of Run
Summary
Run is B-movie entertainment and it’s been done better. It almost seems like film was created to highlight the many young actors involved and to show the Hollywood system that they have arrived. William Moseley was in The Chronicles of Narnia series and it seems that he may want to branch out into his own now. The Blu-ray has some fairly average video and above average sound. The extras are abysmal, though. Run is recommended only for the hardcore parkour enthusiast. If you’re an average filmgoer then you can go ahead and skip it.
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