Running Comedy

Running Scared

Directed by Peter Hyams

At the USA Cinema 57

OCCASIONALLY, IN CONTEMPORARY filmdom, a questionably attractive character can be made more appealing by the judicous inclusion of a 5 o'clock shadow. Take, for instance, the Clint Eastwood characters in Dirty Harry. Or look at Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously, who although certainly not at all unattractive was unquestionably transformed and transubstantiated for the better by the dark smudge under his lips.

Unfortunately, Billy Crystal wasn't so lucky in Running Scared. The growth of stubble which, I assume, was supposed to make his character Detective Danny Costanzo more believable as a tough Chicago vice cop, only made me want to take a napkin and wipe it off like a two-year-old's chinfull of chocolate milk.

Of course, to be honest, that was probably the only thing wrong with Running Scared, and I certainly don't mean to be picky, but I did want to get that off my chest. Now, onto the real review.

The plot of this Beverly Hills Cop meets The French Connection flick is basically pretty straight forward. Gregory Hines, last seen dancing his tootsies off in the utterly offensive White Knights, and Billy "Mahvelous" Crystal play two yukster detectives from inner city Chicago who spend their spare moments between making drug busts and nailing crime rings by delivering Lettermanesque monologues to each other, presumably to pass the time. Utterly realistic cops these guys aren't, but remember, this isn't Hill Street Blues, and going to the movies means suspending one's disbelief. If you keep that caveat in mind, you'll enjoy this rollicking adventure.

Anyway, it's apparent from the first frolicking scenes of Running that this film's Chicago--grim, gray and covered with dirty slush--is clearly not the same shining citadel we saw last week in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. There's crime on the streets of Chicago, unlike in picture-perfect Winnetka, and its up to Costanzo and his oh-so-cool sidekick Ray Hughes to whip the outlaws into shape.

A challenging task even for the best of us, crimebusting eventually wears our two heroes down so much that they are sent off on a mandatory vacation to Key West. (How this is possible on a detective's salary I can't tell you.) A week in the sun does wonders for their wan complexions and sex lives, and they skip back to the windy city with the idea that they should give up the disciplinary rat race and buy a bar down in the Keys with some money that Danny has recently come into thanks to a dearly departed aunt. They give their notice and they've got thirty days to go before a lifetime of fun in the sun.

And now, somewhat predictably but certainly humourously, all Hell breaks loose. They get mugged trying to make a drug bust: "Come on," they say to their teeny bopper assailants, "let us keep the snap shots--and the badges." Their respective ex-wives with whom they are still in loved or at least in lust, abandon them for other guys. And the work on their big case, a sort of Puerto Rican Godfather story, goes awry.

What we've got to remember is that the point here is definitely not the plot--after all who recalls exactly what Beverly Hills Cop was about. All that counts here is the exchanges between Hines and Crystal wonderfully egged along by some excellent dialogue provided by Gary DeVore and Jimmy Huston. Contemplating a potential chemical transaction somewhere on the south side of Chicago, Hughes and Costanzo wonder whether or not to intercede when a 450SEL pulls up alongside a tenement building. Costanzo rebuts Hughes' worries about violating the probable cause rule, by saying, "In this neighborhood, a Mercedes is probable cause."

The Puerto Rican Godfather, someone named Julio, doesn't look as if he would be capable of throwing over a candy store let alone masterminding a huge cocaine-importing business. But this typecasting aside, he somehow manages to corner the detectives into turning over a haul of cocaine. Julio does that by kidnapping Costanzo's about-to-be-remarried ex-wife and holding her hostage in a glass elevator at the top of the State Building in downtown Chicago.

The director would probably like you to think that the State Building plays a role in this film similar to that played by Mount Rushmore in Hitchcock's North by Northwest or the Royal Albert Hall in The Man Who Knew Too Much. If not up to that highest caliber of architectural film settings, the glass dome does provide a nice backdrop for the flying bullets, which shatter the ubiquitous glass windows, the bodies, which fall down escalators and the adventurous heros, who scall the walls of the building with mountain-climbing gear galore.

It should be no surprise to anyone that everything in this movie turns out okay--if it weren't going to, the advertising agency in charge of MGM's account wouldn't have been told to make Hines and Crystal look so happy. You see, they're waiting for the final contract drafts for Running Scared II...