Wick's Review

Summary - Really Great 4.5

Biden voters won’t like Run Hide Fight, a movie about the Trump half of the country. Folks in Trump country eschew victimology. The left obsesses on it. We celebrate lone heroes doing what needs done.

Isabel May as Zoe Hull is a hero who does all that and more when her high school gets attacked by psychopathic classmates. That classic action-movie move gives May’s hero a license to kill. May slays.

It get’s really tense 15 minutes in, REALLY TENSE.

Kyle Rankin’s magnificent movie manages to not glorify psychopaths even as it documents their extreme psychopathy. For them, it’s fame über alles: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, cable news. It does not matter.

Run Hide Fight is studded with grace notes and redemption, suffused with complexity and intelligence.

Rankin conceived a mother-daughter relationship extraordinaire between Radha Mitchell and Isabel May, daughter talking with her deceased mom.
The daughter’s having trouble letting go.

First fight scene at 44 minutes, and it’s a great one.

One of the bad guys is a self-medicating schizophrenic, another perfectly played move by Kyle Rankin.

1:11 My eyes first got misty.
1:17 He’s gotta go. HE’S GOTTA GO. He’s got the knife and more.
1:24 First Kiss

And in the end, she turns away from fame.

She took the road less traveled, and that made all the difference.

Speaking of roads less traveled, Run Hide Fight is only available over at the Daily Wire. It’s well worth it.

Acting - Great 4.0

Isabel May is Jennifer Lawrence II. Her starburst in Run Hide Fight brings to mind JLaw’s in Winter’s Bone. iMay even has jLaw’s husky voice. I wrote about JLaw then: “She absolutely carries this movie, notwithstanding that her fresh-faced beauty never comes into play.” So it is with iMay in Run Hide Fight.

Before becoming a moviestar, Miss May was the super cute Katie Cooper on the Netflix series Alexa & Katie. Looks, smarts, voice, she’s got it all. Plus, she does flat-out McGyver shit in Run Hide Fight.

• Thomas Jane credibly plays an Iraq War veteran – a sniper – who is her father.
• Radha Mitchell delivers a magnificent performance as her deceased mom.
• Olly Sholotan jumps offscreen as her friend and pining suitor.
• Treat Williams is a treat as The Sheriff.
• Eli Brown goes full Manson.
• Cyrus Arnold, Britton Sear & Catherine Davis play his psychopathic followers.
• Cindy Vela plays a beautiful Spanish teacher, beautifully.

Film - Really Great 4.5

Run, hide, fight is what to do if faced with an active shooter situation. No wonder then Kyle Rankin’s Run Hide Fight strikes a realistic chord, notwithstanding its horrific — if not taboo — subject. Too soon? No.

Run Hide Fight is an all time great high school film before anything else. Prom and pranks loom large.

One has to go back to Dope for a high school movie this real about America.

Kyle Rankin wrote and directed Run Hide Fight. He deserves a statuette or two. That is partly because he adheres to Chekhov’s axiom that if "you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.” Balloons, hydrogen explosions and many other tactical elements get introduced early and then used later.

Edge - Sordid 3.1

The violence is savage and sad and sickening, yet its depiction is never gratuitous. There’s wisdom in that.

Reality - Glib 1.4

So much can be said about the real and imagined reality of Run Hide Fight. As to the latter, it’s relatively restrained by action movie standards. As to the former, some other time…

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