Better Start Running is a 2018 comedy about an eclectic band of misfits who become an unlikely family as they take a wild journey in the name of love while on the run from the FBI.
Everything on the surface of Brett Simon‘s new offbeat comedy Better Start Running screams timeless cult classic, with its host of goofy characters, twisty plot, and general absurdity, and I’ll admit I was there for a bit, believing in its promise. However, despite the impressive cast and some loopy moments that click, this is an unfulfilling little film that lacks the edgy punch it seems aiming for, unable to connect like it should.
At the local All Shop department store, a kind of Wal-Mart wannabe, Harley (Alex Sharp) works on the floor stacking Twinkies and barely containing his crush on co-worker Stephanie (Analeigh Tiption), hoping to ask her to the upcoming Fireman’s Dance. However, that plan goes awry when he walks into the manager’s (Chad Faust) office finding him attempting to rape Harley when she refuses his advances. In the scuffle that follows, she pushes the creep out the second floor window and onto the floor below. Unsure what to do, the pair decide to hit the road and go on the run, Harley taking along his disabled grandfather, Garrison (Jeremy Irons), in hopes to reunite the wiry angry old man with Mary (Jane Seymour), his one true love. Soon after, the FBI, led by hard-edged Agent McFadden (Maria Bello) and newcomer Agent Nelson (Karan Soni) take to hunting them down.
Looking to start with a bit of social commentary that might have lent the film a broader message, the film quickly shifts gears and takes to darker themes, outright tossing logic out the window. As the trio use the run to tick off stops on the great American roadside, they soon pick up a drifter named Fitz Paradise (Edi Gathegi), a sidewalk barker of lowrent philosophy, who steals food under the premise that, well, it doesn’t matter. He is, like much of the film, a sort of obvious catch-all that has no real purpose other than to fill in the spaces. As such, Harley is not a smart guy, as expected, but his choices are never all that convincing and the film remains barely cohesive.
What’s missing is the satire. Better Start Running lives in the shadow of the Coen Brothers, whose movies mix comedy and violence with irony, something that this movie lacks. It has all the right parts and a game cast willing to do the work, with Irons out over-doing-it than anyone else, but somehow grows more lifeless the more it drives on, never giving the run any larger weight or greater personal consequence. Bella plays a hopelessly see-through racist whacky agent that strips all credibility from where it needs to be while none of the others develop beyond their introductions.
I wanted to like Better Start Running, its fun start and promise of quirky middle American adventure greatly appealing, yet even with this potential, I never got behind the sort of cut and paste patchwork the story clings to. Undercooked at best, this is a pleasant but unsatisfying roadtrip movie aimlessly traveling to nowhere.