While being a solid flick, Forget Everything And Run loses itself as it it unveils itself as a standard post-apocalyptic jaunt. A film that takes all too familiar footsteps & regretfully never tries to make its own path.
When a terrifying infection is released, Ethan (Jason Tobias) and Josephine (Marci Miller) will fight for their children Mia (Cece Kelly) and son Josh (Danny Ruiz) against a band of marauders, hell-bent on revenge amid a deadly apocalypse.
A Quiet Place meets Maggie is the closest that we can come to describing Forget Everything And Run as the focus is firmly place on the family dynamic and the difficulties in not only trying to survive in this world. But to also make sure the children are prepared to keep going if tragedy strikes one of the parents. Set up relatively well in the opening act, we get a true sense of the relationships and fears that this family have and how integral each person is to their dynamic. The film moves back continually to flashbacks to show us how life was for Ethan and Josephine had, and their relationship before the world turned.
This allows us to feel significant for the couple and eventually their children as we realise how unprepared they were for this. This grounded nature to Forget Everything And Run does wonder for the lo-fi movie. Right to the point that you wish that the entire piece just evolved around these four characters and the struggles that they go through. Goodness knows there would be legs for a film that is even more focused in such a way as they battle through their own dynamic. Sadly by going bigger, we lose a little of what made those four performances work so well, but it is an understandable decision.
While all of the performances are solid, the character of Josh is just too frustrating as he has the standard too scared to act arc. Still, when he is so often doing nothing and not really showing how afraid he is, it becomes difficult not to be frustrated with the film, especially in the climax when simple actions would save him and the audience an awful lot of time. Yet Ruiz is still good here when he is given a chance to do more than freeze.
Where Forget Everything And Run falters most, however, is to how standard it feels. There is nothing new here, and what we do see is done well, but not exceptionally, causing the film to plateau instead of climbing to its final act. Worst of all, the film is relatively static, we go back and forth, yet otherwise, you would want a movie like this to keep moving, but by camping in two central locations as well as a field, a fidget feeling comes across. This is a very confined story that can work, but it fails to be as effective as it needs to reel in the audience.
Where Forget Everything And Run falters most, however, is to how standard it feels. There is nothing new here, and what we do see is done well, but not exceptionally, causing the film to plateau instead of climbing to its final act. Worst of all, the film is relatively static, we go back and forth, yet otherwise, you would want a movie like this to keep moving, but by camping in two central locations as well as a field, a fidget feeling comes across. This is a very confined story that can work, but it fails to be as effective as it needs to reel in the audience.
We do get more in the story regarding both sides motives, which is refreshing as all too often we see one side be the good guys and the others just being monsters. We understand why this group does what it does. They have all been left behind to survive on their own. When pushed into a corner with you and your family’s life on the line, you do what you can. The Allister’s understand this, yet they have now been pushed into a corner, so like this, they have to do what they can to survive as well.
Tobias has created an interesting, if sadly all too familiar world that at times echoes too much of The Walking Dead instead of taking the dramatic aspect in Maggie (a film that I think is under-rated) and the tension in A Quiet Place. There is always a threat, but never suitable tension as we can see where the story is going from a mile away and all of the mystery is as long gone as the soldiers who left these poor souls to suffer in the wilderness.
In the end, Forget Everything And Run is a reasonable effort and an easy watch, but wholly unremarkable in an already cramped sub-genre.
Signature Entertainment presents Forget Everything And Run on Digital Platforms 26th April.
★★ 3/4
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