Crime Drama The Emerald Run Starring David Chokachi (“Witchblade”), Yancy Butler (Kick-Ass 2), Chris Mulkey (“Twin Peaks”) Is A Confusing Lecture In Faith And Morality

This is what happens when an Italian restaurant loses a Michelin Star. Photo courtesy of pophorror.com

When a desperate father with a sick daughter and mounting medical bills turns to a life of mild crime (more like diet crime, no victims and only half the laws broke of regular crime) through the family business (wink wink, nudge nudge) to help pay for his daughter’s treatments, mild turns to violent with less than surprising, but still entertaining, consequences. Welcome to the Emerald Run.

Starring David Chokachi as John Thomas, the film takes you through a family’s struggle of medical debt (yes there’s social commentary) and looking for hope through faith. John’s wife Anna (Yancy Butler) whose father Alfio (Chris Mulkey) happens to be the town’s mob boss, offers John a job in the family business of construction once he does Alfio a favor.  Said favor involves John purchasing a small number of uncut emeralds with cash, fronted by Alfio, from Columbian smugglers in Mexico, to bring back to America and then to Alfio with John getting a small cut for his efforts. Quick job, only going to take a day, really easy, safe, and nothing will go wrong. But that wouldn’t make for a good movie, and within hours John finds himself injured and lost in the Mexico desert being hunted by Mexican thugs (there’s a subtle difference, sometimes too subtle in cinema but I think we’re good here) and the victim of a setup. John’s driver Emilio is also caught up in the chaos but sticks close to him as both men try to survive a two day walk across the desert, while being stalked by murderers, out to the highway in hopes of finding help. Along the way, John finds himself alone, near-death and hallucinating, with no hope of surviving until help in the form of a crazy, desert-dwelling guy who believes himself to be a Christian “alien guide” comes and rescues the poor schmuck from dying. Yes, literally, except by aliens he means illegal ones. The rest of the weirdness of this scene you need to experience for yourself. Moving along.

After the encounter with “crazy desert guy,” John heads back home to confront Alfio about the setup with less than surprising, but entertaining, consequences. He reunites with his family, and even plays a little Robin Hood to help those affected by Alfio’s criminal dealings. Not a bad way to end a film, especially with everything as tense and frustrating as it is, but I really would have loved more legitimacy in the details. In one scene, John catches his daughter Lisa purchasing drugs from some guy on a basketball court near the family restaurant. When John confronts her and takes the package from her, its a bright green plastic case with a Marijuana leaf on top. What did she buy, THC laced wet wipes? In another scene, Emilio gets shot and in just a few hours one of John’s hallucinations tells him Emilio’s gunshot wound to the upper should has become infected and he’s going to die. Really?

I’ll stop right here. There were several other scenes that tripped up the timeline or exposed things missed in editing but really as a whole the movie is good. The cast was solid and flowed together really well, the storyline was interesting, but there were some conflicting elements, especially where scenes involving faith-based decisions were made but all in all, it’s a solid piece of film that won’t make you angry for watching it.

Photo courtesy of Emerald Run IMDb

The official trailer can be seen here 

For more information please visit the IMDb right about here