Run Amok (2026) – Review and Summary [Sundance]

How does a school evolve, or devolve, ten years after a school shooting? Never mind, what is the most appropriate way to ask the daughter of a victim to process it all?

ByAmari Allah Hours Posted on Hours Updated on

Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.

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“Run Amok” Film Details

  • Director(s): NB Mager
  • Writer(s): NB Mager
  • Runtime: 1 Hour(s) and 42 Minutes
  • Public Release Date (Film Festival – Sundance [More Coverage Of The 2026 Film Festival]): January 29, 2026
  • Genre(s): Comedy, Drama, Young Adult
  • Content Rating: Not Rated
  • Primary Language: English

Movie Summary

It has been ten years since Meg’s mom was killed in a school shooting. With her starting freshman year at said school, and learning there is going to be a commemorative ceremony, she decides she wants to be part of it. Now, what in the world would inspire this? Watching a reenactment of the assassination of President Lincoln in history class, paired with a librarian explaining what a cathartic release is.

So, mainly for herself, and maybe some others, Meg works to put on a reenactment of the final moments of her mom and three other students’ lives, with the help of her cousin Penny, and a handful of others – including Mr. Shelby, who ended the shooter’s life.

Cast and Characters

Meg (Alyssa Marvin)

  • Character Summary: A freshman at Lincoln High School, Meg is mostly known for playing the harp, an instrument her mother, Moira, loved, before her tragic death 10 years ago.

Penny (Sophia Torres)

  • Character Summary: Penny is Meg’s older cousin who shares a room with Penny and is often pulled between her first love, singing, and lacrosse, which her parents think will get her a college scholarship.

Mr. Shelby (Patrick Wilson)

  • Character Summary: Mr. Shelby is the music teacher, mostly known for taking down the school shooter ten years ago.

Nancy (Elizabeth Marvel)

  • Character Summary: Nancy is the mother of the school shooter.

Review and Commentary

Highlight(s)

Meg’s Exploration Of What Happened Beyond The Heroes’ Story [83/100]

Being that Meg was four when her mom was murdered, she experienced what you would expect: damnation of the shooter, putting Mr. Shelby, who killed the shooter, on a pedestal, and him having a unique relationship with Meg. But Meg is at a point in her life where she wants to ask questions.

The 6 minutes of what happened are well covered, but as she asks kids who signed up to play her mom, the shooter, and the other victims to research, come up with monologues, and more, she has her own journey to the final performance. Nancy, the shooter’s mom, could hold some answers. She still lives in town and could potentially answer why her son did it?

It’s a very uncomfortable thing to watch, and while Meg’s audacity creates comedic moments, she also orchestrates a reenactment in the same hallway where the shooting happened. Ultimately, leaving you emotionally discombobulated at times. If you’re not watching Meg learn details that weren’t put into the local paper, you’re laughing at how bad Penny sings and the quality of some of the monologues.

The Commentary On School Shooting Defense [82/100]

Teachers, at any given time, are generally outnumbered by students. Classrooms can have 15, 20, maybe even 30 students, with only one teacher, and hallways can be difficult to manage. After all, with all the talking, how crowded they are, and the personalities that may or may not acknowledge any adult authority, anything could happen.

Also, lest we forget, as the figures expected to enforce the rules, paired with potentially being undermined by administrators depending on the kid in question, teachers being targets isn’t surprising. So the idea of teachers having guns in class, even ones with rubber bullets, is explored in Run Amok in both how that can go wrong and, in some minor form, how it could go right.

But the key thing here is that it reminds you that classroom management classes don’t include how to handle a gun, assess potentially fatal situations, or how to use your firearm. So, in an effort to protect kids from the risk of a shooter, you now have adults, made paranoid by all that could happen, and by who, almost as bad as the worst cop out there. Mind you, with a weapon that may have a low ability to kill. However, as shown in the movie, can do the kind of damage that can set a PTA off.

You Want To See The Play [81/100]

While you do get to see a version of it, the raw version surely no adult would ever approve, the final product is what you really want. From the use of “Killing Me Softly” and “Hit Me, Baby, One More Time,” you know it is either going to be a hot mess or something tear-jerking. Add in that the shooting took place over 6 minutes, and the film is an hour and forty-two minutes, it isn’t ridiculous to believe they could show the entire thing, at least for a good part of the film.

Low Point(s)

Things Go Off The Rails During The Last ≈ 30 Minutes [64/100]

For most of the movie, Meg operates as someone weird, potentially lacking self-awareness in ways that feel coded. This framing helps you understand the means and lengths she goes to for what is a rather morbid play—turned musical—along with its various evolutions. However, there comes a point where Run Amok fully lives up to its title and stretches any reasonable suspension of disbelief, given how the world has been presented up to that point.

Avoiding spoilers, Nancy plays a major role in why the film goes awry. Mr. Shelby presents her as dangerous, and Nancy does appear disheveled—possibly still recovering from everything that followed her son’s actions. What begins as something that could be read as healing, as Meg seeks a more three-dimensional version of the truth, escalates into a series of events that add little to the film’s complexity. Instead, it leads to multiple days of behavior that make it impossible to imagine any adult allowing what unfolds between Nancy and Meg to happen unchecked.

From there, the final 30 or so minutes quickly chip away at much of what the film had going for it. The strain on the school community reaches a breaking point, pushing the adults off the tightrope they were barely maintaining, while the film leans harder into comedy than ever before. The tonal shift is so steep that it leaves you hoping—and praying—that the final version of Meg’s “masterpiece” might somehow pull the film back from the brink.

Overall

Our Rating (77/100): Mixed (Divisive)

Run Amok is the type of film that has a good idea, runs with it for most of the film, but the problem with all good ideas for a movie is, what’s the ending? The beginning and middle are easy, characters like Meg can get people interested early on, excited about how the film could end towards the middle, but then you have to deliver. Sadly, Run Amok doesn’t deliver.

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Amari is the founder and head writer of Wherever-I-Look.com and has been writing reviews since 2010, with a focus on dramas and comedies.