The first trailer for Run Hide Fight landed, starring Isabel May and Thomas Jane is an action thriller about a school shooting. Critics were quick to get details wrong and attack the producers, The Daily Wire.
May stars as 17-year-old Zoe Hull, the central character, who must fight for her life and those of her schoolmates, against a group of live-streaming terrorists who attack her high school. The footage showcases her father (Jane) teaching her how to shoot with a rifle as the pair deal with the loss of her mother to cancer. A van crashes into the cafeteria and four heavily-armed teenagers leap out to seize the school.
Run Hide Fight was written and directed by Kyle Rankin and produced by Texas-based filmmakers Dallas Sonnier (Bone Tomahawk) and Amanda Presmyk.
“Run Hide Fight is ultimately a movie about courage in the face of evil,” said Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing Boreing. “This is a gut-wrenching film that does not offer easy talking points, which is why liberal Hollywood executives have refused to distribute it,” he claimed.
“We’re proud to work with The Daily Wire as the exclusive North American distributor for Run Hide Fight,” stated Sonnier who cut the deal with the site, co-founded by Ben Shapiro.
“The Daily Wire’s policy of not publishing the names of mass shooters made it an ideal partner. If this film has a political viewpoint, it’s that we should not make terrorists famous; it’s the heroes whose names we should remember.”
Sonnier continued: “We spent years carefully developing this movie in consultation with law enforcement veterans and shooting victims to immerse people into a realistic portrayal of what it’s like to experience one of these tragedies.”
Run Hide Fight premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year and was picked up by the conservative political outlet, which is venturing into film and TV as the company recently relocated to Nashville, Tennessee.
The film also stars Radha Mitchell, Eli Brown, Olly Sholotan, Treat Williams and Barbara Crampton.
Firstshowing.net failed to offer a neutral report of the trailer’s release, calling the film “controversial:” “This is not a film we support, especially because the people releasing it are so deranged…it’s being distributed by a hardcore right-wing propaganda organization. It’s important to point out this fact – and let you make up your own mind about the film and its content.”
They later in their post: “This looks like a very unsettling, disturbing right-wing fantasy that glorifies violence way too much.”
JoBlo published the title incorrectly, inverting the words to “Run Fight Hide.”
Indie Wire published a review, likening the film to Die Hard, saying it’s a “Glib Cinestate Thriller Turns a School Shooting into a Clichéd Action Movie.”
The reviewer gives the film an “F”: “Generations of parents have baselessly worried that irresponsible movies could inspire school shootings. Now that our country seems to have accepted such massacres as a fact of American life, “Run Hide Fight” suggests it might be more productive for parents to worry that school shootings will inspire irresponsible movies. At least there’s actual proof of that.”
THR attacked the film as well: “What’s most notable about Kyle Rankin’s slick and compulsively watchable genre entry Run Hide Fight is the utter shallowness of its psychological perspective.”
“…a numb detachment takes hold as you realize sensationalism is being flimsily packaged as social commentary on the kind of scenario that has caused America immeasurable suffering.”
Official synopsis: 17-year-old Zoe Hull (Isabel May) uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters. Run Hide Fight is both written and directed by American indie filmmaker Kyle Rankin, director of the feature films The Battle of Shaker Heights, Infestation, Night of the Living Deb, and The Witch Files previously, as well as numerous other short films. Produced by Amanda Presmyk and Dallas Sonnier. This originally premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, and also played at the Stockholm Film Festival last year. The Daily Wire will release Rankin’s Run Hide Fight direct-to-VOD in the US starting on January 15th, 2021 this month.
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