Friday, July 29, 2022

Delayed Reaction: Run Lola Run

Premise: Lola runs and runs again and again.

 


This movie…is cool. It’s hard to come up with another way to say it. It’s a cool movie. In the US we had Fight Club. In England we had Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. In Germany, we had Run Lola Run. This movie is a thunder jolt of life on screen. Lola (Franka Potente) has 20 minutes to get a shit ton of money and get it to her boyfriend across town, so she runs. She gets three tries for some reason. I don’t know why. The movie doesn’t really know why. No one cares. We’re all fine with it. And the movie clocks in at 80 minutes. Beautiful!

 

I love how frantic yet playful the movie is. We get to see quick cuts of the way people’s lives change based on minor interactions each time. There are strange running gags like Lola screaming loud enough to break glass. I haven’t seen most of director Tom Tykwer’s movies, just his collaboration with the Wachowskis on Cloud Atlas and now this. I get why he worked with the Wachowski’s though. This movie has a lot of the same weird energy.

 

I like when a director makes a movie with the understanding that this is mostly a film exercise. Run Lola Run is thin in a lot of places, and that’s intentional. It’s Tykwer challenging himself to make a lean movie that’s nothing but “Go!”. And it succeeds at that. I doubt this will turn into one of my favorite movies of all time, but I can’t think of a reason why anyone shouldn’t watch this.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

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