Running Woman (1998)

Run...away

Some movies are bad yet enjoyable on a silly, nonsenical level. Others are so stupdily conceived and executed they hold all the fascination of passing by a car wreck in slow motion. You simply can't believe what you're seeing. "Running Woman" is one of the latter. A low budget version of "The Fugitive" with a female hero doesn't sound too bad, right? Read on. Theresa Russell plays a art restorer who through complications that make my head hurt ends up accused of the murders of her son and a policeman and running away through the auspices of some Mexican Underground Railroad. Everybody in this movie, especially Russell, acts with a jaw-dropping combination of stupidity and illogic. The police bore in on her as a suspect with a disdain for legal procedure that would make Mark Fuhrman proud. Russell, though running mostly on foot, isolated from her home and near penniless, manages to wear a variety of clothes and wigs that seem to come out of thin air. This was made by one of Roger Corman's companies but even he can usually squeeze some kind of sleazy fun out of a scenario like this. This is so idiotic you can't even enjoy it. How idioitc? At one crucial point, the main villain fires a gun at someone who is holding a huge tank of nerve gas! The villain seems to be the only one surprised when his bullets hit the tank. Theresa Russell isn't the greatest actress in the world but she is still one of the loveliest and it's a shame she spends most of her career in worthless junk like this. Rent this only if you're in the mood to evaporate some brain cells. October 21, 2000

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