Release Dates
Australia: 6th September, 2012; USA 22nd August, 2012; UK12th October 2012
Other Countries: Release Dates
Other Countries: Release Dates
SWIFT & FUN
The actors were clearly
having a good time. The audience was laughing around me and I had the
occasional giggle, so if you are looking for a bit of light fun with attractive
leads, you won’t be disappointed with “Hit and Run”.
The film is written, co-produced
and co-directed by the lead, Dax Shepard.
He does a great job playing the laid-back Charlie Bronson, hiding away
in witness protection living idyllically with his soul mate Annie (Kristen
Bell). These two have a real chemistry
on screen and it is not surprising as they are a real life couple.
Shepherd appears to have a
penchant for rounding up mates and making films and it was whilst doing press
for ‘Brother’s Justice’ (a mockumentary film with many of this same cast) that
the idea for ‘Hit and Run’ was launched. “We kept getting asked what we were
going to do next, and we just started saying we were going to do a car chase
movie,” Shepard recalls. “We had no script or premise – we just knew we loved
car chase movies. And because we had
said it, we knew we would have to deliver.”
The film, in fact, had no
casting director. “We didn’t cast any strangers,” Co-Director David Palmer explains.
“They all got paid SAG scale for a low budget movie – because they all love
Dax. There’s a friendship and trust and sweetness about him that just brings
everybody together.” Notes Shepard, “This was pro ably the worst work
environment that most of these actors have had in years. It was chaotic, but everyone really had a
good time.”
In ‘Hit and Run’, Charlie
Bronson (Dax Shepard), a get-away driver for a bank robber gang is in witness
protection. He places his life at risk
when his girlfriend, Annie (Kristen Bell) is offered an interview for her dream
job in LA. He decides rather than losing
her he will drive her to LA despite his case worker Marshall Randy Anderson
(Tom Arnold) forbidding him to leave. There
is an ongoing joke involving Randy’s inability to control his gun and his car
which works very well throughout the movie.
In fact, Tom Arnold’s Randy is a standout character.
Unfortunately, Gil (Michael
Rosenbaum) the jealous ex-boyfriend alerts Charlie’s old gang leader, Alex
Dmitri (Bradley Cooper) and the rest is a car pursuit that evokes shades of the
classic 1977 Burt Reynolds ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ but in our current era’s ribald
style humor. There are many well known actors in bit parts; Sean Hayes, Kristin
Chenoweth, Beau Bridges, Jason Bateman to name a few.
Whilst ‘Hit and Run’, isn’t
going to drive away with any awards, as my companion commented, "its good fun,
good laughs and at the end you feel good."
And if I think back to my first viewing of ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, I
think I felt much the same way.
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