See How They Run is not an original work in the murder mystery genre. It borrows heavily from the likes of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, but that doesn’t stop it from being a funny, consistently entertaining whodunit.
Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan star as a British inspector and constable who team up on a murder case in England in 1953. An American director (Adrian Brody) has been murdered and the two begin their investigation by questioning everyone in the theater where the murder took place.
David Oyelowo costars as a flamboyant screenwriter who gets a fair amount of screen time as one of the prime suspects. Oyelowo also gets to flex his comedic muscles and nearly all of his scenes work.
The movie does follow a lot of standard fare that this genre does well: It establishes a series of characters with various motives. Then the plot throws in a few twists surrounding these characters in order to throw us and the two investigators off course and finally circles back to give us an unlikely perpetrator.
See How They Run provides just enough energy and laughs to keep it afloat. There’s a laugh a minute, sometimes two laughs a minute and I laughed at just enough of them.
Rockwell and Ronan are clearly having fun with their roles. They embrace the material with enough charm and charisma to hold it together and their dialogue has enough wit to make us happy to tag along for the ride.
The plot rarely stumbles for its 98-minute runtime, but when it does, it immediately picks back up thanks to its two leads never running out of gas.
See How They Run may not break new grounds with its genre, but it’s not trying to. Mostly we’re just happy to see two good actors keeping us entertained with a story that makes us laugh. Case closed.
Grade: B+
(Rated PG-13 for some violence/bloody images and a sexual reference.)
