'Run' starts with a sprint but ends in a walk | movie review

A resourceful teen who is wheelchair-bound begins to suspect that her mother is hiding a deeply-buried secret from her in Run, streaming on Hulu

A couple of heart-pounding sequences of suspense and two terrific lead performances by Sarah Paulson and Kiera Allen are enough to keep Run moving, but its predictable twists end up kneecapping the film before it ever gets momentum.

▶︎ Streaming on Hulu

Director Aneesh Chaganty made a huge splash with his debut feature film Searching—featured on our list of the decade’s best thrillers—a techno-thriller starring John Cho, that took an innovative approach to a classic mystery thriller setup—a missing daughter and her father who will stop at nothing to find her. And though the story was certainly well-trodden territory, Chaganty’s decision to present the film entirely on a laptop screen added an engrossing 21st Century twist to the narrative. His sophomore feature Run on the other hand is as typical as they come.

It probably doesn’t help that it comes directly on the heels of Hulu’s highly successful true-crime miniseries The Act, which tells the chilling story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the murder of her mother, who entrapped Gypsy by fabricating multiple illnesses and disabilities. Of course, Run takes a more melodramatic approach with even more audacious twists and turns—as if that was even possible—as teenager Chloe (Kiera Allen) begins to suspect that her mother Diane (Sarah Paulson) may be experiencing more than just anxiety over the prospect of her going off to college.

The story of Run is so simple that I’m resistant to even expose more of it other than the fact that there are a couple more twists and turns than you might think. Still, the incredibly directed sequences of Hitchcockian suspense, terrific lead performances by Paulson and Allen—who is a real-life wheelchair user, and heart-pounding score aren’t enough to overcome the fact that I could call almost every single plot beat before it happened.

What Run does prove is that Chaganty is a terrific director—listen to him break down one of the best scenes of the movie and you’ll understand why. However, I’d be interested in seeing him tackle someone else’s script or perhaps an adaptation. Though the movie starts off at a sprint by the end it feels like you’re running a marathon to get through it.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.