Real-life lovebirds take flight in ‘Hit & Run’

Real-life lovebirds take flight in ‘Hit & Run’


A quirky, modern romance wrapped around a motor-mouthed Tarantino-esque crime movie, “Hit & Run” is a lot more fun and than I expected. Written by male lead Dax Shepard of TV’s “Parenthood” and co-starring his fiancee, Kristen Bell of TV’s “Veronica Mars” and more recently “Safety Not Guaranteed,” the film is — awww — also a kind of prewedding gift from him to her.

Shepard is, ahem, Charlie Bronson, a youngish man in the California Witness Relocation Program who has a cherry blossom tree tattooed on his shoulder and is totally in love with a beautiful college teacher named Annie (Bell). Annie likes to engage in moral and philosophical debates and has a Ph.D. in, get this, conflict resolution. When Annie gets a chance to start her own program at a college in nearby Los Angeles, Charlie agrees to drive her to her interview, even though it means exposing himself to the people he gave up to the authorities. One hint at what Charlie used to do for a living might be that he drives a vintage black Lincoln Continental with “suicide doors” and a 700-hp engine.

Among Charlie’s previous associates are Alex Dimitri, a dreadlocked psychopathic criminal played by an at first unrecognizable Bradley Cooper. Alex’s gun-moll girlfriend (Joy Bryant) is Charlie’s former fiancee. The other characters in this funny, raunchy, violent comedy include Charlie’s apoplectic “baby sitter” U.S. Marshal Randy (Tom Arnold, chanelling Lou Costello), who keeps losing his gun and shooting up his minivan, and Annie’s boss Debbie (Kristen Cheno-weth), a big fan of Dilaudid with a Xanax chaser.

Among other things, “Hit & Run” answers the question: What happens when you get into a head-on collision with a bowling ball loose inside the vehicle?

Other standouts in the supporting cast are Michael Rosenbaum (“Smallville”) as Annie’s comically overprotective ex-boyfriend Gil, Jess Rowland (“Entourage”) as an openly gay police officer who uses an app called “Pounce” to locate fellow gay men, and Beau Bridges as Charlie’s tough-loving father Clint (ahem). Shepard, who has a panting, puppy-dog quality, and Bell have chemistry to burn and are very appealing as this film’s compulsively bantering Bonnie and Clyde. The film’s soundtrack (Dylan, Pete Townshend, Aerosmith, etc.) is a virtual classic rock playlist and nicely complements the comic chase scenes. “Hit & Run” may not be this generation’s “Something Wild” (1986), but it’s close.

Shepard, also the film’s executive producer, even gives Bell top billing. It’s true romance for sure.