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Brenda (Tasha Smith) is the widow of former chief of staff to the Senator (Michael Toland), Clarence Harper (Sean Dominic). Local reporter, Pamela Odell (Kearia Schroeder), a family friend, reports about the funeral on her news segment. The Senator, who was also in attendance, proceeds to approach Brenda, her mother Dolly (Telma Hopkins), and daughter Kristen (Sydney Elise Johnson) to express his condolences.
Pamela, accompanied by her partner Cain (RonReaco Lee), comes by to extend her sympathies. Brenda informs her that her family is leaving the city for a few days and will be staying at their house in the country. The senator summoned Cain to provide instructions which indicated that with the death of Cein, he would assume the role of chief of staff.
Brenda, Dolly, and Kristen head out of the city to the country house. The three women settle in. In the evening, Kristen serves Dolly some soup along with her medication, which is for lung cancer. Dolly asks her to grab the flask from her bag. Kristen goes to her grandmother. Brenda comes to say goodnight to her mother and sees her drinking whiskey with her medication. She comments on how the combination of the two will certainly knock her out.
The women go to bed. At night, Brenda is woken up by someone knocking at the door. It is Cain and he is frantic. As he comes inside, he begins to apologize. He goes back to the front door and finds two masked men with guns. They come and take both of them hostage. Cain tells Brenda that they made him bring him to her house.
Now they search for Kristen. Dolly is sleeping in the other room after taking pills with whiskey. The three hostages are being watched by the men in the lounge. Brenda is curious to know what the men want. She says they can take money but the men refuse her offer. They take her to the safe. What else do you want? She asks. The thing she wants most is in the file, not the safe. Brenda does not know about the file.
He knows who you are, masked man. The security agent. Spears. Cain tells the man. Spears accepts that he is indeed Spears. Spears states that they will need to implement plan B. After that, he brings Cain and Brenda back to the lounge. Trying to take control of Spears, Cain elbows him and makes him drop the gun. Brenda seizes the weapon and points it at Spears, only to be met with resistance. She is not going to shoot him. Give him the weapon or else, he tells her.
The trio is taken to the basement where they are bound. Cain questions Brenda about the file. She claims that she doesn’t have any information regarding the file. He tells her that they have Pamela and his children. Cain explains to her about some files that Clarence discovered that showed corruption within the government and off-shore accounts. The captors return to the room and escort Cain and Brenda out.
They have Pamela in the kitchen. They believe Brenda and Cain aren’t as forthcoming as they had hoped. As an example to the others, they proceed to kill Pamela. Spears informs Brenda that Clarence was murdered and that the means of death used were a poison that made him have a heart attack. He tells her he will also fake her family’s history to put all the blame on her while killing her entire family unless she complies with his orders.
Searching the house for a particular file, Kristen is taken back to the basement. Kristen frees herself and manages to untie the other two agents. Brenda instructs her to retrieve the grandmother’s phone so she may place a call to the police. Kristen manages to escape with the phone while Cain creates a distraction. One of the agents Trent, played by Paul Logan, chases after her. Luckily for her, she is able to call the police before he can catch her.
After the police arrive, Spears begins telling them to pack up and leave. In the midst of all the noise, Dolly wakes up and stretches herself out in curiosity to see what is all the fuss about. In a fit of rage, he begins waving a knife around Kristen’s neck Philip screams that he does not wish to go back to jail. Finally Spears manages to get rid of the police drones surrounding his house. Everybody else is captured and taken down to the basement along with Brenda and Doll.
As Tess begins to get impatient, Trent cannot hold his anger any longer, he will eliminate the entire squad and make his exit. Brenda then pipes in letting the rest of the agents know that her lawyer might have the file. Some of the comments Dolly made towards him are uncalled for. He ruins her day by knocking her out with a kick. While, in a fit of rage, Brenda decides to rush and attack him. She does get a few hits, but ultimately gets punched into oblivion. Still, Trent has no reason to smile, there are patrol units surrounding the building. Finally pointing the barrel of his gun at Brenna, Spears shouts at him not to take her life.
Cain shoots Trent. He turns out to be the culprit of the entire scenario. He takes Brenda with him as they are supposed to see her lawyer. He explains to Brenda why he is following through with the plan. Yes, Clarence did inform him of the scandal, and yes, Cain did say that they could use it for their political gain. Clarence had no interest in that. He does also tell her that he was the one that poisoned Clarence.
To start, Cain wants the file to increase his chances of becoming the Vice President and later the President. Cain leaves with Brenda in tow so that she can meet with the lawyer. Meanwhile at the country house, Spears has started to deal with Trent’s corpse.
He sets fire to the metal tub filled with acid. Cain and Brenda grab the file. Kristen escapes once again by freeing herself using Trent’s damaged dagger. She surprises Spears stabbing him in the leg. He slaps her and she strikes him with a tray and he collapses into the bath of acid.
Brenda tells Cain to contact Spears. Spears who is dead, does not respond. Brenda then knees Cain in the groin and takes the car, driving back over to the country house. This time, Cain grabs a car off some man while threatening him with a gun and starts driving after her.
In his home country, Cain meets Brenda. He convinces her that all that matters is that he obtains the file, as they can place blame on Spears for everything else. Brenda demands a copy which she keeps, while a year later Cain is now the Vice President. At his inauguration, Brenda visits and stabs a needle in his back, giving him a heart attack. Fin.
Written, directed, and produced by Christopher B Stokes, Running Out Of Time is a shallow thriller in my opinion. This film follows the typical theme of ambitious political figures, so it is not surprising that Cain is power hungry, and trying to dismantle a Spears so he can climb up the food chain. Such political drama is loose and not very appealing to me, but I certainly will not call it a work of art.
Without a doubt Stokes is sleeping when it comes to this type of genre. He is best known for his move We Belong Together, which was equally as horrible. The first half of the movie is so unbelievable that it leads you to question whether or not Stokes has heard of The West Wing or Absolute Power, let alone Marathon Man.
The film is aesthetically pleasing, albeit overly episodic and scripted. The country house appears stunningly beautiful in a show high definition.
As a veteran of over twenty directing credits, Stokes does decide to add slow motion in the most random places, which does absolutely nothing for the impact of the story.
There is an underwhelming so-called emotional scene in Smith’s Brenda is alone and deeply contemplating her recently divorced husband. Stokes allows his background of serving as a director in music videos to completely overshadow some of the scenes with music. It’s certainly a lot more like a music video instead of having any sort of touch, and feels rather jarring.
The shocking reveal of Lee’s Cain truly being the big bad, while it’s frustratingly obvious, does enact a type of relief. From the moment he revealed himself to be the mastermind behind the ordeal, the film greatly improved. The pace and script fitted Stokes’ directing style a lot better.
Running Out of Time is 97 minutes long, which isn’t long for a movie. Its second half covers the plot at a brisk pace, making it even easier to sit through. The writing is badly framed, yet if you ignore the terrible acting and conveniently overlook the over-the-top heavy-handed dialogue and exposition, the film is undeniably a mediocre thriller. Without anything else to watch, it is somewhat worth watching.
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