See How They Run may not live long in the memory, but you're sure to have a fun time at the pictures, piecing together this murder mystery.
Written by Elliot Lines / September 7, 2022
Whodunit movies are nothing new in Hollywood, providing a simple enough premise of investigating a group of people once someone gets killed. Recently we've had a few movies within the genre, most notably Knives Out, but there are plenty more out there. Where See How They Run does nothing new for the genre, you're sure to have a fun time at the pictures, piecing together this murder mystery story.
Based in the 1950's, See How They Run follows a group of people all involved in a smash-hit play set to be made into a movie, when one of the key people behind the film gets murdered. An under enthusiastic Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and and eager Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) take on the case, in which they must piece together who could have committed this crime.
Saoirse Ronan is a film star, her role as Constable Stalker shows that she has full range than maybe the more serious roles we have seen before. Her comedic timing is impeccable throughout, and she really is the one who gets most of the laughs. But that wouldn't be possible without an accomplice and her chemistry with Rockwells Inspector portrayal work perfectly together, providing plenty of laugh out loud moments throughout.
These two are certainly the most fleshed out, as we spend most of our time with them, which hindered the other characters. You get backstories, as you do in this genre, but this doesn't quite give those characters enough to really care about the outcome for them.
Sitting at a comfortable 98 minutes, anymore and See How They Run may have got smothered by its own storyline. There is a tasteful simplicity to whats on show here, with the film doing enough in this runtime to entertain but not become to convoluted within the mystery that is being solved. In any case, the killers reveal does feel a little sudden in its delivery but it certainly feels like a logical outcome for what has come before it.
See How They Run may not bring much new to the whodunit genre, but with the assistance of Ronan and Rockwell, it'll bring plenty of laughs to the theatre with a tight script and a competent murder mystery story-line.
STAR RATING
