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When it comes to sociopathic roles, J.K. Simmons is not new to the game. It truly is remarkable that Simmons can transition from someone who resembles a standard suburban neighbor to a complete psychopath with a perfectly orchestrated smile. Most of the You Can’t Run Forever seems like a blast for him, and the fact that it was co-written and directed by his wife of almost thirty years probably made this an even more memorable shoot. Unfortunately, he’s the only one enjoying himself. We certainly won’t.
To give credit where it’s due, You Can’t Run Forever does start with a shot that grabs attention, but it is a sequence that demonstrates the illogical storyline that will come after. While driving through nowhere, Simmons’ Wade arrives at a gas station just in time witness a couple, who were sitting outside the convenience store, brawl with a guy who has a very annoying dog. Helping the logic by shooting the couple and dog owner, then driving off into the sunset. He is clearly insane. And not the average Movie Big Bad is insane, In one of the scenes, he rubs one out to a picture of the wife of the man he’s just murdered. There exists a You Can’t Run Forever version that resembles High Tension or Martyrs that truly offers the most extreme and violent view of the world in its narrative.
The issue is, that director Michelle Schumacher doesn’t seem to have the guts to make that film. She always seems to lose tonal control over the film and directs Simmons in a flat energyless performance that makes him feel as if he is completely lost in a film that does know what to do with him. The true nature of the film comes alive when Wade confronts Eddie (Allen Leech) together with his step-daughter Miranda (Isabelle Anaya), where he ends up killing the former and setting the young woman loose into the woods to fend for herself. Meanwhile, the very pregnant mother Jenny (Fernanda Urrejola) is panicking while insect local cops investigate what seem to be the first murders in their town. Particularly the best bit in the film where an incompetent deputy bumbles his way through a crime scene montage is just too good. Wade on the other hand continues to chase Miranda through the woods. It’s another take on “The Most Dangerous Game.”
And yet it is not really. Schumacher and her co-writer Carolyn Carpenter seem to contradict themselves whole refusing to trust their “predator vs prey” idea and throughout the film ruin any kind of suspense building by cutting away to an anxious Jenny or policemen and woman trying to uncover who is stalking the small town.
Even the attempts at flashbacks are poor in offering Wade plausible reasoning. This kind of movie only works with a ruthless, motiveless killer who pushes a victim to discover their inner strength. But that kind of direct one-on-one thriller requires faith in the performers as well as their collaborators, especially editors and cinematographers, who craft the environment into an unnerving stage. The movie You Can’t Run Forever lacks tension, and it lacks suspense. It feels like the beginning of a work that would fall apart without the Oscar winner at its center.
Regarding that Oscar awardee, it gives some sadistic pleasure watching a student who is clearly above the level of his peers. A certain cruelty in his gaze, a cruel grin when he knows one has power over him, and a true hint of menace that is all there in Simmons’s choice. And yet none of his scene partners rise to meet what he’s trying to do, creating a peculiar professional/amateur split that one experiences when observing subpar talent trying to cop with super elite sportsmen. To do so, Schumacher extends the emotional bandwidth with exploitation of the star like suicide and the threat of being an overzealous mother, as well as the consequences, but of course, none of it rises to Simmons’ level. He does not seem to notice all the things they put out to him. He is simply moving so rapidly that he cannot be matched by the film.
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