Run Lola Run (1999)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a brilliant film. Tons of great action and suspense, a real thriller that isn't so much about scaring the audience as just keeping them on the edge of their seats. It also has lots of great comedic moments as well. It's like Groundhog's Day meets Frantic or Sliding Doors... hard to describe but totally unique and will keep your attention.

What you have in "Run Lola Run" are three scenarios done a la the 'butterfly effect', and it's ultimately up to the viewer to decide which one of the outcomes is most credible given the set up at the beginning. It can be interesting for viewers who haven't seen a lot of films done in this manner, but has a way of cheating the person invested in a specific outcome, whether good, bad or indifferent. It's the same with the cuckoo bird cited in my summary line, which was a quote from Lola's (Franka Potente) father in the first segment when he ushered her out of the building. The female cuckoo will deposit her eggs in the nests of other birds so she doesn't have to tend to them herself. Good strategy for cuckoo's, not so good for humans.For whatever reason, probably in an attempt to provide another novel approach to this project, the director inserts additional scenarios in which ancillary characters are fast forwarded to their ultimate destiny as a result of being 'touched' by Lola during her sprint. These have no effect on any of the potential outcomes to the story, nor do the dreamlike visions of Lola and her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) while on the verge of death following the first two chapters. Oh yes, and there's also the animated patches spliced in as Lola starts her heroic runs, another concession to novelty that comes at you rather unexpectedly.Even with my criticism, this isn't a bad film by any means. Actually it's rather entertaining and clips along rather swiftly in it's hour and a half run time and you could probably do worse. Just be prepared to watch a film with no definitive conclusion unless you provide it for yourself. For my money, I'd go with the last reel, and if I was Lola, I'd dump Manni and keep the hundred thousand marks for myself.

What if life were like a video game? What if, with a prolonged scream and the drop of a phone, we could restart time, retain all of our previous knowledge, and replay the obstacle course that is life until we reach our optimal outcomes? Run Lola Run, German director Tom Tyker's international breakthrough film, explores this premise. Manni, Lola's boyfriend, has left a bag containing 100,000 deutschmarks on the subway, watching helplessly as it ends up in the hands of a homeless man. To add insult to injury, Manni is expected to deliver this money in the next 20 minutes to a mobster, or risk being killed for failing. Who else can he call then, but his partner in crime, Lola? Together, they form the vague underpinnings of a plan, with only the concrete goal being to get the money, and get it ASAP. Rob a bank? Hold up the store across the street? No one knows. The only thing Lola understands is that she must run, and run fast. Tyker is not one to be tied down to the idea of conformity of traditional cinema form; no, he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants to. Think rapid-fire montages, extended animated sequences, and even VCR-quality shots that you'd imagine would be more fitting in a low-budget soap opera or an amateur home video. In the hands of a lesser director, Run Lola Run could easily have become a pointless exercise in form over substance, but Tyker, with his capable direction, makes it work, creating a tapestry that serves both the story at hand and the greater themes that he aims to explore. This brings us to the next point. What you've read thus far may suggest that Run Lola Run is a skin-deep action diversion, akin to a Mission Impossible or a Fast and the Furious, but don't be misled. As briskly paced and action-packed as it is, at its heart, Run Lola Run wrestles with markedly heavy ideas such as existentialism, destiny, and the nature of time. Tyker, with his gift of brevity, shows us how the smallest, most seemingly benign actions and interactions can cause an avalanche effect on the rest of our lives. Lola distracts a cyclist while running. Later, the cyclist gets mugged and gets his bike stolen. While in the hospital recovering from his wounds, he falls in love with a nurse. They get married and live happily ever after. All of this, told through a series of rapid-fire snapshots in a span of five seconds. A microcosm of life itself, perhaps. Then we get to the idea of time itself being a malleable form that we can control, as opposed to the unwavering forward tick-tock that we know it as. How would we reshape our own paths in life if we were given the power to "respawn" whenever we wanted to? Would we take advantage of others for our own self gain? Would we help others instead, knowing that something harmful will occur to them in the near future? Though Run Lola Run doesn't directly pose these questions to us, you'd be hard-pressed to find any viewer who doesn't contemplate these existential questions after the movie finishes. At its heart, Run Lola Run is imbued with the frenetic energy of modern day Berlin. There's scarcely time to catch our breaths as Lola flies through the streets, driven by the pulsing beat of German synth pop and the immense task at hand. At an economical 81 minutes long, Run Lola Run is the perfect starter course for the moviegoer who wants to delve into German cinema, but is used to the non-stop visual and auditory stimulus of Hollywood blockbusters. For the well-traversed movie aficionado: there is much to sink your teeth into as well. And through it all, Tyker imparts a visual style and an energy that won't let us take our eyes off the screen. Not a single second is wasted, for a single second can shape the rest of our lives.

The editing and pacing of this movie kept you interested and often intrigued by its strangeness. I particularly enjoyed the red phone interspersed with the red bag as they both fell to the ground. Great performances by the two main lovers. The action is simple, yet very effective. Often the filmmaker seems excessively showing off (the entire cartoon sequence felt unnecessary). Incredibly enjoyable and enough to ponder on. I loved the slight differences between the three runs. As the movie got more and more invested in the outcome, the coincidences and run-ins that Lola endured became wonderful to behold. It felt intelligent and exciting at the same time.