One of the best things about cinema in the 80s was the buddy cop films. Sure, they existed before the 80s, and they still exist now, but the 80s was their “golden era”. Sure, they all followed the same formula: a pair of misfits who seem to always get on their captain’s nerves, and they come across some big case, and the only two knucklehead cops who seem to be able to solve it are our loveable pair. Personally, Lethal Weapon is my favorite of this subgenre, with 48 Hours coming in a close second, but really during the 80s there really isn’t a bad buddy cop film. They are just over-the-top action with a few laughs, but most important is the chemistry between the pair as they chase down and shoot bad guys along the way. One of these classic films is Running Scared. It paired Billy Crystal with Gregory Hines in a film filled with laughs and action and utilizing a Chicago cityscape as the background.
Danny (Crystal) and Ray (Hines) are detectives who are doing what they can to try to finally take down Julio Gonzales (Jimmy Smits), a notorious crime lord in Chicago. They get the opportunity to intercept his money in the beginning of the film, but of course what they really want is to bring him down for drugs, but that that won’t be as easy as they hope. They get carried away using one of their suspects as bait and in the process ruin an undercover operation.
The pair end up taking a vacation to south Florida, and honestly this is where things could have gotten interesting … but it is short-lived. On vacation Danny decides maybe it is time to retire early and open up a bar and start a new life. It takes a bit of convincing, but Ray decides he’s on board, and they agree that when their vacation ends they are putting in their 30-day notice and leaving the days of gunfights and chasing criminals in their rearview. Personally I would have loved to see the shenanigans these two got into as bar owners and the story maybe going in the direction of them encountering some cocaine cowboys down south, but alas, this isn’t where it goes. No, they of course have “one last case”, and of course, that is to finally put away Gonzales.
Thankfully the banter and chemistry between Crystal and Hines elevates the familiar story. They have a great dynamic, and they play off one another really well. It’s more surprising that they didn’t eventually do a sequel or pair up again in another film like this, because they really are fantastic together. Then there are the other familiar faces in the cast that make this fun: Joe Pantoliano playing a street hood, Dan Hedaya as the police captain, then I think everyone’s favorite random bad guy of the 80s, Al Leong (you know, the Asian bad guy in Die Hard, and Genghis Khan in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure). One of the film’s strongest moments is a car chase on the L-train tracks. Sure, it may not be filled with the explosions and property destruction we’ve grown accustomed to in action films, but seeing this chase on the tracks was definitely a fun moment, and for its time pretty awesome.
While it has its bright spots, the film just doesn’t offer anything we haven’t seen before. I still would recommend this film if for no better reason that it is directed by Peter Hyams, who is one of the more underappreciated directors who was in his prime during the late 70s through the 90s. He also was his own director of photography on Running Scared, which is a bit unheard of, especially for an action film. I think the film looks great and captures the cold and dirty streets of Chicago in a beautiful way and is a nice contrast when you think of how John Hughes tended to shoot Chicago and make it look grand and almost regal.
At the end of the day, this is a fun movie for what it is. Because of the cast I definitely appreciate more than I should, and I’m OK with that. This was when Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal were breaking out and becoming stars, and that’s always fun to see. This film shows they were already icons before Hollywood even realized it.
