Running on Empty
Tags: anti war, romantic, avant garde, dramatic

Plot synopsis:
Mike (Terry Serio) is a young man who is a budding street racer, and owner of a Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase III. His best mate and mechanic, Tony (John Agius), are both steel workers by day, but when they aren't working, they are racing.
Fox (Richard Moir) is the top street racer of the area, and owner of a Dodge Challenger; no one dares cross him and his tight group of mates, and he is currently unbeaten, but when Fox wins a race against an unnamed racer in a Holden Monaro, who then, following the race loses control of his car in anger and ends up perishing in a fiery crash, no one has the stomach to race.....Fox is now facing a drought of racing and therefore money.
Julie is the voyeuristic young girl portrayed by singer Deborah Conway, and seemingly involved with Fox. Mike fancies her, and the feeling is mutual. Fox takes advantage of this weakness, and pursues Mike, and basically tells him that if he wants whats his (Julie) he has to race for it.
Mike loses the first race to Fox, the fact being his Falcon just isn't fast enough. They decide to go out to the country (filmed in Cobar, New South Wales), to race easy wins to make enough money to build up the engine (351 Cleveland) of his Falcon to beat Fox. Between playing "Spotto" (a form of eye spy) on the way and scamming service station attendants, we only see them racing one group of people, a bunch of dim-witted bogans called the Gazard boys, in an EK Holden, who they knew they would beat and go on to do so. They agree on a double or nothing race for the next day.
The next morning they find themselves at Rebel's garage, who they crossed paths with the day before, and they realise that Rebel (Max Cullen) is blind, but still has a great passion for life and cars. He still drives his prized blown '57 Chevy coupe, with the help of his wife Joan (Annie Semler).
Mike then sets out to find the racers from yesterday, with them leading Mike, Tony and Julie into a trap, where the racers threaten to burn the Falcon to the ground with them in it unless they give them back their money that they lost the day before. They proceed to get angrier wetting the car with gasoline and then setting it on fire, with Mike trying to drive away and in the process roll the car a few times, but managed to start it up again and drive the car into a shallow lake to quench the fire.
They arrive back at Rebel's, the car barely moving, and Rebel allows them to stay just as long as it takes to get the car fixed. Over the course of a few weeks, Rebel, Mike and Tony repair the car back to its former glory and after a few days of testing the car and tuning it with nitrous they return to the city to race Fox once again.
As the cars line up at the start line (The brick-yards in Homebush, Sydney) As they set of and reach redline speed in what seems like a setup from Mike's point of view but was really just an accident, a truck pulls out in front of Fox and Mike during the race, destroying the Falcon and injuring Mike.
After Mike's recovery in hospital, it seems he has given up—until Tony is bashed by Fox's head thug for riding a bicycle after Fox told them "no wheels and off the street". Mike confronts Fox and challenges him to a race. Mike plans to race and bet Rebel's Chevy, he knows it will beat the Dodge - he just has to convince Rebel to let him use it.
Mike heads back to Rebel's and asks him for the car. After Rebel's reluctant agreement, teaching Mike to drive it and handle the car properly, they head back to the city once more, only to have Fox, realising that he has no chance against the Chevy over the quarter mile, decides they will run Kemps Creek instead, which is a mile long race, figuring that he has the speed advantage.
After the eventful race through Kemps Creek and Mike's eventual victory, there is a dramatic sort of stand-off between the two, and Fox, possibly coming to terms that he lost, drives the Dodge full speed into a wall, killing himself and destroying the car, as if to make the point that Mike would never have his car. The movie ends with Mike's not so fussed reaction to this event and fades into the credits.

Review: The best reason to watch this film is of course the performance by River Phoenix, which now that he's dead, we will never know if he could have topped this.
Although it wasn't a box office hit, I believe it will be remembered as one of Director Sidney Lumet's best films and certainly the best one to watch if you want to remember why the talented actor River Phoenix's death was so tragic..
When I was 16, I used to hang out with a tough crowd and my best friend at the time was a real trouble maker, we would always get into fights with other guys our age and sometimes men, and he was a really tough kid, anyway one night he calls me and tells me that he watched the saddest movie he had ever seen, he said it was the first time he actually cried since he saw E.T. I was laughing at him continuously, until I watched it and got so profoundly effected by it that even thinking about that last scene makes my eyes water.
One scene is particularly powerful and makes me tear up every time I watch it: The luncheon meeting between Annie, the mother (Christine Lahti) and her father, played by Steven Hill.
No special FX, pretty tame action (mostly involving music and dancing), only six main characters, but a great entertaining and inspirational film.Rated 9.9 out of 10, in case something better ever comes along.
Watching it with my wife tonight (her first time seeing it) and I still cried at the conclusion.This movie, more than any other, even Stand By Me, makes me miss the adult actor that River Phoenix might have become.
Annie Pope (Christine Lahti) transmits to son Danny (River Phoenix) her musical gift, but also imbues him with an exceptional sensitivity and appreciation of beauty.
I thought this was a powerful movie about '60s radicals on the lam for 14 years and a crisis that develops when the family's 17-year-old son is talented enough to enter Juliard School Of Music which means , because of identity problems, they may never see him again.
Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play the husband and wife and River Phoenix and Jonas Abry are their kids.There is excellent acting in this film and particularly by young Phoenix.
I wouldn't recommend viewing for everyone; the film is slow in comparison to modern offerings, but if you're interested in romance, drama, or even just River Phoenix this is definitely a must-see movie..
However, going by the excellence of this film, "Running On Empty", I honestly don't see how you could see him as anything but.Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti both give wonderful performances as the ex-radicals on the run from the FBI for 17 years (and the worried parents of two fast-growing-up boys,) but the undoubted star of the picture is (a then 18-year-old) River Phoenix as their eldest son.
Who, for all his young life, has moved from town to town with his parents and younger brother, changing schools, homes, and identity at each stop, so as not to be located by the government and punished for the acts his parents committed before he was born.The film concentrates on the latest identity, the latest stop on the Pope families' never-ending quest to evade the law.
Phoenix's character falls in love with a girl (played by Phoenix's real life girlfriend at the time, Martha Plimpton) and wants to stay.
If you can picture a subtle mix of some of the best aspects of James Dean and a young Henry Fonda and you're coming close to what Phoenix achieved here.'Running On Empty' is a classic example of great, poignant, affecting, emotional film making (and acting) and I give it 10/10.
The characters were not your average expected radicals, they were normal people with convictions who placed themselves and their children in an abnormal situation.The story line is a family on the run from the FBI.
Playing the son of the activists on the run from the law for almost 20 years, River Phoenix gave one of his best performances ever in this film.
And of course, The Late/Great River Phoenix is beyond excellence.'Running on Empty' Synopsis: The eldest son of a fugitive family comes of age and wants to live a life of his own.'Running on Empty' isn't merely a tale about fugitives, its a tale, of family, bond & coming of age.
A pair of anti-war radicals on the run with their nuclear family, Annie and Arthur Pope (Lahti and Hirsch) are answerable for a napalm laboratory bombing in the 70s (with one casualty of injury), designated as an anti-Vietnam war protestation, and have been lying low with new identities every once in a while henceforth, until their eldest son Danny (Phoenix) reaches 17, a watershed is laying out, some big decision needs to contemplate by both parties.
The whole close-knit cast has done a cracking job, Judd Hirsch, although one can hardly condone that him and Phoenix are cutting from the same family tree from their physical appearances, pulls off an earnest father and an activist with ardor, whereas, Christine Lahti is viscerally sublime in her Janus-faced versatility: checking the scenes where Annie pseudo-cavalierly converses with Danny's teacher and later a lachrymose tête-à-tête with her own father for the first time in 15 years, that is the testimonial.
Sensibly filleting the more sensitive political agenda (there are worms in their noble cause too) which is concomitant with the story-line, RUNNING ON EMPTY is in essence a well-meaning, good-natured encomium of family value and altruistic sacrifice, only its rushed finale (at least the logistics team could have packed some items in their departing truck considering they are fleeing from the place for keeps), hits like a fly in the ointment in a hearty 80s tale, incidentally, if the same story happens in a CCTV-rampant age like today, the family's fly-by-night endeavor will definitely not last such a protracted length to even face their offspring's growing pains..
The director, Sidney Lumet, has directed some great American films dealing with important issues, including Twelve Angry Men, Fail-Safe, The Pawnbroker and Network, among many others; he was no doubt aware of the lives of fugitives whose criminality came to haunt them because of social alienation or contempt for waging war in the Vietnam.
In the opening scene of this movie about one such family, we find the elder son, played by River Phoenix, coming home to a comfortable house only to find FBI agents driving around the property.
The parents, played by Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti, have the know-how and social skills to make the best for their tight-knit family of four.
The encounter between Annie, the mother (Christine Lahti) and her father, played by Steven Hill, is the most moving scene in this movie, bringing together regrets, heartbreak and lost opportunities.
"Running on Empty" is an achingly beautiful film about a fugitive family which has come to a fork in the road - their 17-year-old son, a musical prodigy, wants to go to Julliard, thus splitting up and possibly endangering the family.
The crux of the story is the struggle between the older son, Danny (played with extraordinary sensitivity by the late River Phoenix), and his parents, but it is so much more.
The main character, Danny (played amazingly by the Wonderful River Phoenix) has been moving and changing his name since he was two years old.When the family moves, Danny meets a girl named Lorna (played triumphantly by Martha Plimpton) whom which he falls in love and doesn't want to leave when his father tells the family it's time to move again.
(I doubt he would have killed himself, as well.)Knowing that the FBI had lost a lot of interest in old radicals by the time it was filmed made the subject matter more palatable to the studios while still seeming "hip." The actors perform well but the character of the parents were nearsighted and selfish for most of their lives, and the ending can't really undo that much damage.
The "Pope" family consists of a father (Arthur = Judd Hirsch), a mother (Annie = Christine Lahti), and two young sons (River Phoenix and Jonas Abry).
There seemed to be a lack of character development on-screen, which led to several points of disconnect that ripped me right out of the plot each time.There were some decent scenes, like the restaurant scene between father and daughter, and overall I can't complain about the performances of either Lahti or Hirsch.
He succeeds in capturing our attention fully with this tale of love, sacrifice and quest for redemption.River Phoenix got his (sadly) only Oscar nomination for his part of the elder son of parents who were once political activists (played by the equally wonderful Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti) who are now constantly on the run from the law after taking part in a political bombing.
In the meanwhile, his mother tries to convince her rather wealthy parents to take Danny into their safe and stable home and give him an opportunity to become a concert pianist.It is a very emotional and melodramatic movie, but without Lumet at the helm, I think it would likely dissolve into just another sappy and boring love movie and the dramatic content would be neglected or pushed in the background where it would do no good.
Teenager Danny Pope (River Phoenix) notices that people are following him and he initiates the family to go on the run again.
except for Running on empty.Every time I watch the birthday scene with the beautiful Fire and Rain by James Taylor, I cry like a baby, because there's real love in that family.
Of course I also adore Lahti, Phoenix and Plimpton, but to me, the final scene with that old bike and the face of Judd Hirsch looking at his son, and River Phoenix looking at his family is so moving...
Some critical decisions will have to be made by him and by his fugitive family.Running On Empty got two Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Supporting Actor for River Phoenix.
I'm sure that background also prepared for the radically different part he played in My Own Private Idaho.Still for all the acclaim River got my favorite scene in the film and its climax involves Christine Lahti and her father Steven Hill when they reunite surreptitiously in a restaurant where all the pent up feelings on both sides get to hang out.
At the place they're living Danny meets and falls in love with a wonderful girl (Martha Plimpton) and finds out he has enough talent to be accepted to Juilliard--but his father won't let him go.A quiet yet very moving movie.
Running on Empty, a 1988 film by Sidney Lumet, is a sympathetic look at a family in hiding from the authorities as a result of having committed a bomb attack on a napalm laboratory in 1970 to protest the Vietnam War. The attack left a janitor blinded and led to the pursuit of the family by the FBI for fifteen years.
The film describes the disruption in the lives of the parents, Arthur and Annie Pope (Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti) and its effect on their two sons, 17-year-old Danny (River Phoenix) and 10-year-old Harry (Jonas Abry).
The conflict is resolved but only after a gripping and emotional scene.Running on Empty is reminiscent of another Lumet film Daniel that showed how the political activity of the parents (in this case, the Rosenbergs) changed the lives of the children forever.
Now they have two children, Stephen, a young boy, and Michael, a teenage piano prodigy, played by a wonderful River Phoenix.After they arrive in a small town in New Jersey, the teenager falls in love with his music teacher's daughter and applies to Julliard in NYC.
But when the family needs to skip town and go on the run again, he is torn between his aspirations and his family.Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch are both great as the streetwise, idealistic parents, but the real star here is the late River Phoenix, who gives a wonderful, angst filled performance..
When I saw it first in the middle of the schoolmate crowd, I didn't care much about it, but when a couple of years later I saw it alone at home, it touched me deep inside, feeling quite identified with the youngster.It's a brilliant performance especially by River Phoenix and the rest of the cast too, playing a family who lives underground for past political activities having to change identity and move continuously in order to escape the police, but at the same time trying to lead a life as normal as possible.
Sidney Lumet directs the singularly beautiful and sensitive movie, which still affects on multiple levels.River Phoenix, the son of Vietnam protest criminals, still on the run from the FBI, has reached an age where he needs to pursue his own life and ambition, requiring a stable home environment.River's relationship with Martha Plimpton's character, both lonely and disconnected adolescents in 1980s America.River's parents, conflicted about their relationship with their children, the cost to both themselves and their sons of the life they chose to live, and conflicted in their relationship with each other - both knowing their life cannot last the way it is, but unable to deal with the inevitability of the end of their family unit.Christine Lahti's re-awakened relationship with her estranged father, and the pain of 15 years absence.River was wonderful.
Love despite adversity is what keeps this family together.The story may be a bit slow for fans of action films and cheap toilet comedies, and the movie was never given any piled-on "hype", so it is easy to see why this never saw any mainstream success.
river phoenix al well as martha plimpton are wonderful actors,i recommend this movie to everyone who is interested in a good story and strong emotional playing..
Only at the very end of the film does Arthur realise this contradiction and makes the final gesture (I won't say what it is) which shows that he has learned to put his children's needs before his own.River Phoenix, the young actor who died from a drugs overdose at the age of 23, stars as Danny.
(I certainly preferred this film to the overrated "My Own Private Idaho" which is sometimes cited as his best).There are two other good performances from Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti as Arthur and Annie.
for me its a beautiful film, still a hidden gem of Sydney lumet, and i love it mainly for river phoenix and the love story setting with Martha plumpton.
The whole counter-culture theme seemed curiously out of date though, especially the scene where Lahti's old radical boy friend turns up, but at least the film told a different and interesting story very well.River Pheonix's performance was somewhat inexperienced, especially in his body language.
Turns out the film has a lot to offer.The teen make-out scenes with Martha Plimpton and River Phoenix were strictly PG but were perhaps the hottest I've seen in 60 years.
And to do so, he might never see his on-the-lam family again."Directed by Sidney Lumet, from Naomi Foner's 'Golden Globe Award'-winning screenplay, this powerful, bittersweet movie also stars Martha Plimpton and Steven Hill, and earned acting honors for the emotional performances of Lahti ('Los Angeles Film Critics Best Actress Award') and Phoenix (named 'Best Supporting Actor' by the 'National Board of Review')," according to the DVD sleeve description.This film doesn't tout itself as being "based on a true story," but writer Naomi Foner seems to have been inspired by Bill Ayers and his "Weather Underground".
Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War, the group specialized in the bombing of sites related to the war effort - without human casualty; but, in "Running on Empty", the protesters blind a janitor.The film's performances are a highlight, as was noted by wins and nominations among movie award-giving groups; they considered River Phoenix the "Supporting Actor" in the drama, but he clearly handles the starring role.
Finally, due to his untimely death, watching River emote with James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" in your brain is positively prescient.******* Running on Empty (9/7/88) Sidney Lumet ~ River Phoenix, Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch, Martha Plimpton.
A thirty-something husband and wife, responsible for Viet Nam War protest violence in past years, are forever on the run, trying to evade capture by the F.B.I. What makes the story interesting is that the couple has two sons, one of whom is Danny (River Phoenix), a gifted piano player.
Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, and Martha Plimpton all shine.Given the 1960s youth rebellion back-story, I could have wished for some corresponding 1960s era music.
River Phoenix stars as a coming of age teenager whose parents are fugitives from the vietnam war protest era who must frequently be on the run to keep one step ahead of the law..
The best scene in the movie, as far as I'm concerned, was between Christine Lahti and Steven Hill, who plays her father.
"Running On Empty" is a moving family drama told through the point of view of Danny Pope, aka Michael Manfield, aka Richard McNally (sp?), played by the very talented and lamented River Phoenix.
The audition scene is one of my favourites."Running On Empty" has a lot going on for it: a good though slightly flawed script, talented actors (Phoenix, Christine Lahti, Judd Hirsch and Martha Plimpton), and BEAUTIFUL music.
As is Christine Lahti, the mother, River Phoenix as the son, and Martha Plimpton as the girlfriend.
Mississippi Burning is another film that springs to mind.The Pope family are fugitives.They have been on the run from the FBI since the early 1970s.Arthur(Judd Hirsch)and Annie (Christine Lahti) were once student radicals who blew up a lab that produced weapons, as a protest against the Vietnam War. Think Weathermen Underground and you get the picture.Their act of terror resulted in a fatality.