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Parents' Guide to

Run Hide Fight

By Alistair Lawrence, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Vengeful school-shooter drama has violence, language.

Movie NR 2021 109 minutes
Run Hide Fight Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 5 parent reviews

age 16+

Very good film with thought provoking commentary on a complex problem.

A great movie with some genuinely good moments and thought provoking commentary. It’s difficult to watch at times, especially with recent events and not a children's movie. It could prove beneficial to be seen with well adjusted high-schoolers and discussed. Definitely should be seen by all parents in this day and age. Some acting is over the top. Some realistic violence and one objectionable scene with partial nudity, but overall compelling, realistic, very well acted by lead actress and excellent directing and production value. highly recommended.

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
Great role models
Too much sex
1 person found this helpful.
age 15+

Not Pure or Wholesome, but Still Needs to Be Seen Responsibly

This movie doesn't shy away from the fact that it's about a VERY violent scenario - a school shooting. All of the trailers make it clear what this movie is about, so don't go in expecting something Disney-ish in purity & wholesomeness. What I do appreciate about the movie is that, while it's violent, it doesn't glorify the violence. While the main character does kill people, you can tell that it bothers her to have to do that. A lot of the extra violence is often met with confusion, like people asking "Why are you doing this?" The movie also impresses upon the viewer that bad things happen to everyone & that having something bad happen to you is not a good enough reason to hurt innocent people. The final message that goes through the entire movie is that you don't have to be a victim in negative &/or traumatic situations. The main character does have some self-defense & weapon training, but she's by no means a military operative or police officer. She easily could have run away & acted like a victim, but she didn't. Most of what she does to help others is use her own ingenuity & what few tools she finds around herself, which is something anyone can do. Obviously, no one wants to go through a traumatic situation like a school shooting, but this movie shows you that if something like that happens, there is something that everyone can do. The themes of this movie (school shootings, gun violence, juvenile delinquency, mental illness, etc.) are clearly sensitive ones, but hiding away from them don't help anyone. What I recommend is parents watching this alone (without kids) first & creating conversations around these themes to be talked about after the movie is over, if they decide to show them to their kids. Since school shootings are statistically more likely to occur in high school, waiting until kids are old enough for high school before watching this movie with parents does seem appropriate. To reiterate, this isn't a pure or wholesome movie by any means. However, it's an important movie that does need to be seen - just make sure to view it responsibly.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Too much violence
Too much swearing
1 person found this helpful.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5 ):
Kids say (6 ):

The opening hour of this low-budget action thriller is a tense portrayal of how the lives of students and school staff can be terrorized by acts of carefully planned violence. Run Hide Fight doesn't shy away from the violence it depicts. Blood sprays the walls and innocent teens die in each others' arms in between May's Zoe fleeing, then combating, the school shooters. But just as forcefully as the film announces itself, its story begins to unravel into a tedious revenge fantasy.

Zoe's grief for her mother never quite fits its intended purpose of showing us how she processes death. While the movie also wastes the talents of Thomas Jane, who plays Zoe's veteran father, Todd, and Treat Williams, whose cameo as Sheriff Tarsy seems to accidentally include one of the movie's best scenes, when he must distract roving news crews so that some more lives can be saved. Ultimately Run Hide Fight fails to create any memorable heroes, villains, set pieces, or talking points. Amid its confused pronouncements about vengeance and personal responsibility, the worst thing you can say about it is that eventually it's no longer shocking, just boring.

Movie Details

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