Film #189 - Run Ronnie Run (2002)
Run Ronnie Run is a film spun-off from the HBO comedy series Mr. Showstarring David Cross and Bob Odenkirk. On that show, there was a sketch about one Ronnie Dobbs, a redneck loser who became famous for being captured on COPS-like television shows. Run Ronnie Run is essentially an expanded version of that sketch.
Unfortunately, as much fun as the original sketch was, there really isn’t enough material to fill a whole film. Ronnie is full of material that just screams padding. And while there are laughs to be had with even the weakest of this material, it doesn’t help hold the film together as it needs to be.
The story as told in the film follows Ronnie (David Cross) as he tries (for, I think, the fourth time) to get back together with his ex-wife Tammy (Jill Talley), the mother of his several children. When, much to Ronnie’s surprise, she spurns him, he goes off on another of his drunken romps and is captured by the police. His arrest is seen by television producer Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk) who sees enormous potential in Ronnie. The rest of the film is pretty much a typical Holywood roller-coaster ride as Ronnie becomes famous and learns of the negeative side to life in the public eye.
Sure, there are plenty of funny jokes scattered throughout, but with a cookie-cutter plotline like that, they needed to do some amazing stuff and they just didn’t. Much of the best material had already been used on Mr. Show. There are, in fact, only two moments where Run Ronnie Run lives up to its potential, both musical: when the film is interrupted for a filthy song and dance routine by Jack Black and scenes of Mandy Patinkin in rehearsal for a Ronnie Dobbs musical on Broadway.
In the end, the film smells of interference or, at best, a lack of focus on the part of Odenkirk and Cross. When they could run rampant all over the television screen, they seemed in control. On the big screen, they seem hopelessly out of their depth, unsure what to do with the bigger canvas. As I stated, it could be that they were simply pulled in too many directions to ever pull this film off. Regardless of where the blame lies, however, Run Ronnie Run fails to deliver.