Rian Johnson’s Knives Out was a wildly successful hit, and quite unexpectedly. He paid back his budget almost eight times and received an ocean of accolades from a wide variety of critics and viewers. Therefore, it is not surprising that cinema has set a relatively small but confident trend for new wave detectives. “Watch them run” refers to the latter. We tell in the review below how successfully the film manages to entertain and intrigue.
See How They Run
Genre comedy detective
Directed by Tom George
Cast : Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, David Oyelowo, Adrien Brody
Premiere cinemas
Release year 2022
IMDb site
The plot starts with the desire of director Leo Copernicus (Adrien Brody) to film an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s detective play The Mousetrap. At the same time, Leo himself can hardly be called a decent person, so he manages to get drunk into several conflicts in London. The situation escalates when it turns out that Leo was killed by someone. All employees of the local theater are under suspicion. Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) take on the murder investigation.
“Watch Them Run” is a US-UK co-production that could have a positive effect on the overall atmosphere of the work. Alas, the picture took from Britain only external stylistic features, which, although they look beautiful, do not carry a special semantic load. The rest turned out to be an exclusively “American” film, and not in the best sense of the expression.
As a detective, “Watch Them Run” does not impress with particular ingenuity, but at the same time it does not slip into completely outright nonsense. He skillfully keeps the intrigue and carefully throws up all the new clues, so you can’t call him too simple either. Rather, the authors tried too hard to adhere to the standards of detective storylines. Fans of the classics of the genre will appreciate it, but the rest of the audience may find what is happening somewhat insipid and boring.
Metaelements should have diluted the detective canons, because it is not for nothing that Agatha Christie’s detective play plays its role in the script. Only here it turns out to be rather an additional decoration of local history and a slight nod to the classics. Somehow seriously affect the detective essence of the plot and look at it from a non-standard angle, as the story “Get Knives Out” did, in this case it did not work.
At the same time, there are enough humorous moments in the cinema, from which “American roots” also stick out. Local comedy lacks ingenuity and wit, which looks especially strange in the local sophisticated British scenery. However, that doesn’t mean the movie isn’t funny. To cheer him up, he does not slip into some kind of excessive cringe.
The acting is also enjoyable. The acting tandem of Rockwell and Ronan is always a pleasure to watch, and Brody, even with relatively little time on the screen, once again proves perfectly why the whole world considers him an outstanding actor. Even the characters of the third importance in “Watch them run” look interesting. And that’s critical for a detective.
At the same time, the film was shot without the use of at least some unusual directorial techniques. It does not feel chamber (although it could, given the essence of what is happening), it does not stand out with interesting plans and scenes. On the other hand, from a technical point of view, there are no special complaints about it.
Perhaps, “there are no special complaints” can be said about the entire film as a whole. He does not invent anything new, reminiscent of hundreds of other film detectives. At the same time, he focuses only on the most worthy works, trying to recreate them almost frame by frame, while diluting them with an original plot as a whole. But “Watch them run” does not bring all the unique moments to a decent level, and sometimes even completely ignores it.
