Running on Empty (1988)

I am honestly too riveted on River Phoenix to comment about anything else. He was like, the next generation James Dean. And a James Dean he was. I always think Phoenix, antemortem and postmortem both, resembles youth itself, a constant warzone between lethal solicitudes and all-conquering fierceness.First of all, the guy was cool as hell. Effortlessly so. He couldn't have helped it, he was born pretty. That's kind of a package deal when you choose to put him on screen: his screen presence is so strong that everything else would be dissected, personified through his sophisticated outlook. He'd be the centerpiece, the eye of the hurricane. Then suddenly, it all escalates into an assessment of identity. And you can identify with that.His signature specialties include the multifaceted ambiguity of his facial expressions and his innate magnetism. Had he not died I imagine he would've grown into a present day Leo di Caprio—if you know what I mean. An ever-evolving actor who keeps outstretching his limits despite, or perhaps even due to, his childhood acclaims.The movie's got some Rebel Without a Cause vibe, although it goes to the opposite direction. It's well-acted, it has a clear vision about what kind of movie it wants to be, everything is executed in the right amount. And of course Phoenix is pitch perfect in it.I really wish I could see every single thing he might've stored for us up his sleeve, but his death immortalized his youth, and I guess I can live with that.7/10.

Outstanding drama with incredible performances. The story it tells of radicals in hiding and on the run while trying to raise a family but actually living the half life of the hunted is compelling enough but contributions of cast, director and script make it something extraordinary. Lumet was an erratic director but when he was on his A game his films are some of the best around, this one ranks up with his masterworks Dog Day Afternoon and Murder on the Orient Express. Taut yet accessible you really care for this family, warts and all.Beautifully acted by all but there are several standouts. Christine Lahti, a great unsung actress, is achingly real in her conflicted duty to her family and sense of frustration at their rootlessness. The scene between she and her father in a restaurant is one of the most moving you'll ever see in any film. Her work her really deserved an Oscar nomination, in my opinion she should have won but an acknowledgment was at least her due. River Phoenix did receive a nomination and along with Martha Plimpton they offer the other really fine performances. His desires to remain loyal to his family and their situation versus his yearning for roots, the exploration of his talents and a chance to find his own way in the world make compelling viewing. The movie doesn't move at breakneck speed but for those viewers willing to invest in it's deliberate pace this is a great film.

Running on Empty is a gem of film, with some great performances, especially the late River Phoenix.This is one of those films in the late 1980s that looked back on the recent past. Mississippi Burning is another film that springs to mind.The Pope family are fugitives.They have been on the run from the FBI since the early 1970s.Arthur(Judd Hirsch)and Annie (Christine Lahti) were once student radicals who blew up a lab that produced weapons, as a protest against the Vietnam War. Think Weathermen Underground and you get the picture.Their act of terror resulted in a fatality. We meet met them years later, when they are the parents to two boys. One of them, Danny played by River Phoenix, is now a teenager. He is tired of running, never having time to put down roots or make real friends. Danny also has to assume a new identity each time the family move. Whilst enrolled at his latest school, Danny, under the alias of Michael Manfield comes to the attention of a music teacher who notices what a gifted piano player he is. The teacher's daughter Lorna(Martha Plimpton) also notices Danny and begins to fall for him.The scenes between Danny and Lorna are well done. He slowly lowers his guard and starts to trust herThis film covers so much ground. Its about identity, love and how your past can both trap and mould you. Danny learnt to appreciate music through his mother, Annie who was from a wealthy middle class family. She knows how good he could be, but can she and Arthur let him go? Can he keep running forever without being able to live his life?There are two stand out scenes for me in this film. Annie meets her father for the first time in years. She clearly rejected everything he stood and yet there is so much emotion between them. The other scene is the pivotal one where the Popes make a decision about Danny. It is a clear indication that River Phoenix would have been huge had he lived.Just watch the look in his eyes as they bid farewell.To execute that range of emotions, you got to have acting chops. River definitely had it.The late Sidney Lumet shows what a skilled film maker he was, taking a difficult subject matter and getting great performances from the main players.

The most unsettling part of the family setting their dog out into the street and telling the children it'll certainly find another home is that the children take it rather well. They've deserted family dogs before. And they've left whole lives behind more times than that. The Popes are a married couple who've been subversive since the '60s, and their children include Danny, a high school senior and has never known any other kind of routine. The Popes were implicated in radical politics.They destroyed a building, and there was a janitor they didn't know would be there. They've been fugitives ever since, switching towns and names, finding jobs that don't draw attention, learning to keep the kids home on picture day. The more they flee yesteryear, the more it's in their mindset. And now time is catching up. What, for instance, is Danny going to do? He is a talented pianist, and through one of his teachers he gains a Juilliard scholarship. But he can't collect it unless he supplies his high school transcripts, which are strewn back along countless towns under countless different names.Judd Hirsch's Arthur Pope has taken an uncompromising position for decades, and he's not prepared to change now. He deems that the family must remain together, must safeguard itself against the world. He has created a stronghold psychology, and Danny shares it. He understands that if he confesses and enrolls at Juilliard, he'll never see his family again. His mother, Christine Lahti's Annie, will be heartbroken. She has been fleeing for ages without lamenting the forfeits she made, but she can't accept the idea that Danny will have to surrender his future, just as she lost hers.Life, for the time being, continues. Danny makes a girlfriend, whose father is conveniently the music teacher. They share secrets, but Danny can't share his biggest one. This is the first time he's had a girlfriend, the first time he's let anyone become this close, and he has to learn to confide without being truthful. Plimpton knows something's off, but not exactly what. The family has outlasted each close shave with the Feds, each question from a loud-mouthed neighbor. But this is an impossible risk, as it derives from within: It's no longer feasible for these people to elude questioning the very practicalities on which they've made their lives.And that questioning causes the movie's emotional pinnacle, when Lahti calls her father and coordinates to meet him for lunch. Long ago, she hurt him irrevocably. She vanished for years. Now she wants her parents to assume Danny, so he can go to music school. She will lose her son, as her father lost her. It's ironic and heartbreaking, and by the end of the scene we have been through a choker. The one scene that doesn't work is the cheesy and lugubrious ensemble dinner scene where everyone breaks out into song. But in either case, Lumet is showing us people who've chosen and are observing the cost, and throughout the film they'll have to reassess their assessments.Lumet was one of America's best directors, and his expertise here is in the way he takes a histrionic plot and makes it truthful by making it exclusive. All of the supporting characters are persuasive, mainly Plimpton and her father. And there are impressive performances in the principal roles. Phoenix largely bears the story. It's about him. Lahti and Hill have that devastating scene together. And Lahti and Hirsch, clustered together in bed, realizing in terror that they may have reached a turning point, are poignant. We see how they've relied on one another.The family is not actually political at all. Politics, interestingly, have been left far behind. That sort of commitment would reveal the Popes. The film is a tender, moving drama in which a choice must be made between staying together or splitting apart and perhaps realizing a long-deferred possibility. The parents never met whatever potential they had, owing to their fugitive life. Now, are they warranted in making their son forsake his own future?