Review: John Swab’s Run with the Hunted Is Captive to Suspect Morality

At the onset of writer-director John Swab’s Run with the Hunted, a man (William Forsythe) offers a sage piece of advice to his young son, Oscar (Mitchell Paulsen): that he should step up for “the betterment of others.” But it’s a message that would seem to have been lost in translation, because not too long after this conversation, Oscar murders his adult neighbor, Persey (Brad Carter), in his sleep with a hot poker after learning that the man is abusing his children, Loux (Madilyn Kellam) and Amos (Evan Assante). It’s a wildly abrupt and vexing turn of events, since not only does the boy not even bother to ask his seemingly supportive parents for their assistance in helping Persey’s kids, but nothing in Oscar’s behavior before this point suggests he’s capable of such brutality. But even more baffling is how the film sees Oscar’s violence as a heroic act of self-sacrifice.

Indeed, this unsettling disconnect between the viciousness of characters’ actions and the film’s seemingly forgiving attitude toward them continues unabated after Oscar runs off and finds shelter with a group of child hoodlums. It’s under the watchful eye of Birdie (Ron Perlman) and Sway (Mark Boone Junior) that the kids pick the pockets of strangers and work their way up to robbing stores. Rather than see these children as victims of Birdie and Sway—who, for no discernable reason, have the full support of a police officer (Slaine) and a congressman (Darryl Cox)—Swab glorifies their situation. Soon, Oscar is hooking up with his soulmate, Peaches (Kylie Rogers), and joining her “family of broken toys,” gleefully committing crimes and bonding as if they were Lost Boys working under a pair of adult Peter Pans.

Flash forward 15 years and Oscar, now played by Michael Pitt, is helping to groom a new generation of crooks. It’s business as usual for him until Loux (Sam Quartin), who hasn’t seen him since before her father’s murder, stumbles upon evidence of her supposed savior’s existence. At this point, Run with the Hunted appears to be building toward a cathartic reunion between Oscar and Loux and an eventual eradication of Sway and Birdie’s twisted, exploitative operation. But the script instead proceeds to take a number of ludicrous left turns that further muddy the film’s already suspect morality. Events such as Amos’s (Gore Abrams) sudden reappearance to help Loux track down Oscar and a desperate act on Peaches’s (Dree Hemingway) part are given none of the context needed to make them seem remotely realistic. As such, Swab’s big emotional swings often whiff, leaving some narrative threads frustratingly unresolved and others wrapped up in totally arbitrary fashion.