A Review of Ben Shapiro's Film: "Run, Hide, Fight."

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Christian disciple. Friendly, goofy, fun. Love to write.

3 years ago

As a screenwriter, actor, and film producer, I have had the privilege and occasion to work on many films, write and produce my own, and work on several movie and TV sets in various capacities.

Here's me as an outlaw on a western movie set. And yes, the side iron is real. Geez, I always play the bad guy.

At any rate, I firmly believe my 15 years of experience entitles me to be a critic of all things film, and I don't prefer to mince words. I share my thoughts honestly, whether I like the writer, producer(s) or the film distributor. In this way, you get an opinion you may or may not agree with.

For the record, I like a lot of what Ben Shapiro has to say during debates because he is sensible, logical; but on some issues we would definitely disagree. For one, I don't prefer pandering to any political base or ideology. It is what it is.

Shapiro released his first film through his new entertainment venue at The Daily Wire in January of 2021. It is only streaming online and many have enjoyed it. As of this writing it has a 6.2 rating on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). A friend advised it is already on the torrents. Be careful treading down that illegal path, friends!

I did not like the flick so much, but there were some good aspects of the film. Here's my take.

First of all, the screenwriter and director, Kyle Rankin, basically did a remake of "Diehard" but with a high school setting replete with unbelievable characters and not-so-gory, shoot-em-up scenes. The explosions were pretty cool, though.

Rankin actually borrowed (plagiarized) a complete line from the Diehard film. Pathetic. Some screenwriters do this as a gag. If that was Rankin's intent, it fell on deaf ears. Not funny and it was likely completely missed by 99% of the viewers.

At any rate, the plot straight off of the IMDB website reads: "17-year-old Zoe Hull uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters."

Zoe's compassion borders on the silly and absurd. Her character is definitively shallow. But let's move on. You can watch it yourself and decide.

As far as I am concerned, the plot is shallow and quite predictable. You can pretty much guess the next lines of dialogue.

Warning: Be mindful of spoiler alerts hereafter.

I'll state this tight off the bat: the only good actor in the bunch is Eli Brown (above left on the GIF), who plays a magnificent psychopath. He is convincing, believable, solid, and his mannerisms and facial expressions are spot on with the dialogue and the aberrant characteristics of sociopathy and psychopathy.

The rest of the actors are not very well-trained, including the heroine, Zoe (corny name, too). When faced with fear (machine guns, explosives and outright bloody murder), the actors and extras are by and large emotionless. It's like they were formally zombies on The Walking Dead. Those that do express emotion are rather dreadful at it.

The dead mother that Zoe is depressed about at the beginning (first act) follows an age-old film trope. I didn't like it but it was played rather decently by Radha Mitchell. Her lines (unfortunately for her) were banal, boring, and I swear, totally predictable. It appears Rankin brought in a little bit of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" to the script.

I would argue that the most discomfiting aspect of the film was the numerous continuity errors. While I have no clue regarding how many times each scene was shot (usually I had 6-10 takes of each scene on each of my films), the script supervisor and the editor utterly failed at their respective jobs. Horribly.

For example, these bad guys never run out of ammo. It's amazing. Maybe I missed the Harry Potter magic. I don't know. To Rankin's credit, most films have an overabundance of ammo.

When the protagonist (Zoe) is shot in the leg after a hail of bullets emanating from one of the loony antagonists, she applies a tourniquet. Fair enough. But throughout the rest of the film she limps, doesn't limp (inconsistent!), and at times gets around like the much beloved Usain Bolt.

And there is no blood seeping from the severe wound that requires a tourniquet. There's only a few spots of red on her jeans and then there isn't. Bad SFX. Sad SFX. Worse than poor continuity.

Another thing, how do the teens who are live-streaming from their phones able to do so for well over an hour without charging? Incredible! Did Apple come out with a super battery? Heck, if so, I need a couple of those!

Did I mention the bad lighting in the film? Well, there is that, too.

In the end, I would rate the flick a 2 out of 10 stars. You may see it differently. Give it a watch.

Here is the official trailer:

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi973455641?ref_=tt_pv_vi_aiv_1

Here is the cast: