Run Hide Fight – Review/Summary (with Spoilers)

[Unless Said Otherwise] Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.

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You ever think to yourself, “I built up a tolerance to this kind of stuff?” Yeah, “Run Hide Fight” may test that theory.

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Director(s)	Kyle Rankin
Screenplay By	Kyle Rankin
Date Released (Digital)	1/15/2021
Genre(s)	Action, Crime, Horror, Thriller, Young Adult, LGBT
Duration	1 Hour, 49 Minutes
Rating	Not Rated
Noted Cast
Zoe	Isabel May
Tristan	Eli Brown
Todd	Thomas Jane
Jennifer	Radha Mitchell

This content contains pertinent spoilers. Also, images and text may contain affiliate links, which, if a purchase is made, we’ll earn money or products from the company.

Film Summary

All Zoe can think about is leaving Vernon Central High School in Vernon, Nebraska, and head off to Purdue University in Indiana. Not just for the sake of finally being done with high school, but also the bad memories her home town holds – like her mom’s death by cancer. However, thanks to a young man named Tristan and three of his associates, Zoe is forced to have one additional bad memory. Though unlike her mom dying, Zoe can do something about this situation; she can stop Tristan and his friends from killing people and possibly blowing up the building to smithereens. So, with a bit of a military background, thanks to her dad Todd training her to survive, she decides to take on the school shooter, his team and unravel his well thought out plan.

Things To Note | Question(s) Left Unanswered

• Reason(s) for Film Rating: You will see kids get murdered, a woman is forced to undo her blouse and show her breasts, and on top of kids being murdered, it does focus on what some of their bodies look like after they have been shot or caught in an explosion.
• Availability: Currently, it is only available on The Daily Wire (a conservative news outlet), with a subscription of $12+ a month.

Collected Quote(s) & .Gifs

Funny when you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
— Tristan

You’re not the only good thing in my life, you’re the best thing.
— Zoe

Cast & Characters

Zoe

17 going on 18-year-old Zoe hasn’t been the same since her mom died. In fact, the word “Shutdown” is often used to describe her. But with her already admitted to college, all she wants to do is skate to graduation and leave the town, which may have her beloved father and best friend, but one of her worst memories as well.

Tristan

The leader of a school shooting team.

Todd

Zoey’s ex-military father that has trained his daughter to survive.

Jennifer

Zoey’s mother who died of cancer but who she, and Todd, still talk to.

Review

Highlights

It Has The Vibe Of An Action Movie, Without The “This Could Never Happen” Aspect

One of the very few benefits of the pandemic is that we didn’t have school shootings every month. However, as the media has grown accustomed to reporting these types of stories, so have writers, directors, actors, and producers become comfortable with writing stories. Which, as seen in films like White Rabbit, Blackbird, Rudderless, and And Then I Go, remind you of why that’s not necessarily a good idea.

For example, of that list, And Then I Go presents the idea of having a school shooting during an assembly, and to one-up that film, Run Hide Fight decides to lay out how senior prank day would be best. From there, it adds in the multitude of ways to control the situation as a shooter. Now, let me say that this feels very irresponsible to give people thinking about stuff like these ideas. Yet as someone who clearly has seen multiple films focused on the subject, I can’t lie and say Rankin didn’t make me glad I am no longer in school.

Mind you, I am increasingly fearful for my godchild and my friends who have kids, but it’s the fear and paranoia that Rankin executes well. The idea that, with a few guns, knowing which room to go to cut the school off from the outside world, and understanding the security measures in place, 4 kids could take over a school. I mean, look at past news stories, it is rarely ever a large team, and as they report more and more on what went wrong, you can imagine someone like Tristan taking notes, so they don’t deal with those pitfalls.

Thus leaving you increasingly shocked and borderline understanding why some want security guards, teachers, administrators, sometimes even kids to have guns in school.

Isabel May

We know Isabel May from Alexa & Katie when we were still covering that show. Since then, she has really only done comedies, like Young Sheldon, so seeing her shoot guns, kill people, and look like a badass doing so, it was jarring, yet we grew to accept it. Mainly, because you get this sense of grit, her more popular programs don’t ask her to exhibit. And as you add in the trauma of her dealing with her mom dying and how she becomes an unlikely but capable hero, it pushes the idea May very well might be underestimated.

I’d even submit that, considering her comedic abilities and how she is as an action star, between Gwen Stacy in a future Spiderman movie, or another action heroine, she should be on a casting director’s list.

On The Fence

Tristan and His Crew

We’re going to mainly focus on Tristan, for when it comes to two of his subordinates, a brother/sister duo, their motive for helping is that he has an intimate relationship with both (hence the LGBT tag). As for the other one, it is your usual, someone embarrassed/ bullied me storyline.

As for Tristan? While called a f****t by a jock and being given up on by administrators, though they are factors, they don’t seem to be what broke the camels back. Which isn’t to say anything he could say would justify what he does or him manipulating others to kill on his behalf. It’s just, the setup and preparation to control the situation is far more developed and interesting than anything Tristan actually does or says. Leaving you feeling Zoe is more fighting Tristan setting up a masterful plan, and then a desperate kid whose minions were not prepared for anything to go wrong.

Overall

Rating: Positive (Worth Seeing)

When it comes to films like Run Hide Fight, we often feel torn on what we should or shouldn’t say about it. Yes, everything it shows Tristan does to execute his shooting is dangerous to put out there (I do get the hypocrisy here), for it presents a borderline efficient way to execute a shooting. Yet, on the other hand, it forces you to remember how Hollywood uses the most horrible events in people’s lives and amplifies them by correcting where others have gone wrong. Be it crafting better plans, noting the types of weapons, cars, or what have you to use, and the only thing that really makes this taboo is that children are involved.

Raise this to a college campus, and while it is still frightening, the edge is lost. Heck, make this a bank robbery, taking over a police station, a multitude of storylines done over and over, and you come to realize how we’ve normalized and have long support crime fantasies. Yet, unlike many of those storylines, a school shooting before 2020 became as frequent of an occurrence as missing a meal, forgetting your phone, or struggling to remember an old password. And Run Hide Fight reminds you of that world and how horrible it was that we were slowly becoming either desensitized or radicalized by school shootings.

Hence the worth seeing label. Run Hide Fight is a reminder that while COVID-19 became the most associated thing with the word “pandemic,” it doesn’t mean we don’t have many more that didn’t receive real resolutions.

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Run Hide Fight Ending (Spoilers)

Luckily for Zoe, though she gets banged up and had a bullet go through her leg, she survives. It is largely due to her and her father Todd often going shooting and survival training, which allowed Zoe to properly handle guns and do first aid on herself. Also, what helped is Jennifer, Zoe’s deceased mom, talking to her, and acting as a bit of a guardian angel throughout the ordeal.

Thus Zoe was able to kill one of Tristan’s minions, the brother/sister duo’s sister, her dad kills the brother, and as for the third minion? Well, he is killed by the brother for having a change of heart. Leaving Tristan. He almost gets away with what he did by making it seem he committed suicide. However, Zoe spots him trying to walk away and uses her dad’s rifle to take him down and leaves him to bleed out.

Though with a SWAT team heading over to him, who knows, the demented child might get saved?

Does Run Hide Fight Have Prequel/ Sequel Potential?

Unless Zoe ends up at a college shooting, which would be eye-roll inducing, this seems like the end of her journey. Certainly not the end of her trauma, but the end of us seeing Zoe Hull.

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