In theaters

RUNNING SCARED, written and directed by Wayne Kramer, rated R, 119 minutes.

When it comes right down to it, the new Wayne Kramer movie, “Running Scared,” should have been called “Running with Scissors.” Not because it’s a dangerous movie (it isn’t), but because it’s a reckless, unthinking movie that quickly impales itself on its own script.

As written by Kramer (“The Cooler”), there is every indication that this ridiculous, overly stylized movie was conceived on the fly. How else do you describe all that follows?

Scenes are stacked against each other so haphazardly, there’s the sense that somebody here, perhaps a grip who fit the film’s target demographic of angry young men, was cheering from the sidelines, urging Kramer to take the movie into any number of directions, all of which appear to have led it to the place it most belongs – Hell.

Boiled to its essence, the film’s idiot plot goes like this: Paul Walker is Joey Gazelle – yes, Joey Gazelle – a bargain-basement thug charged by a midlevel mobster to get rid of the gun that was used to mow down several dirty cops in a drug bust gone wrong. If he screws up and that gun somehow gets on the street, people Joey don’t want to tangle with could get in the sort of trouble that will leave Joey wishing he’d done the job right.

Knowing this, Joey drives home, where the lighting is grim, the d?cor is depressing and his wife, Teresa (Vera Farmiga), is cooking spaghetti in a thong. Well, that lifts Joey’s mood. Roughly, he tries to have sex with her on the washing machine, but since Teresa is having none of it – Joey’s ailing father is, after all, only a few steps away, a ribbon of drool unspooling from his mouth – Joey zips up and scrambles into the basement. There, his son, Nicky (Alex Neuberger), and Nicky’s friend, Oleg (Cameron Bright), watch him from behind a stack of boxes as he hides the gun.

Since there wouldn’t be a movie if the gun didn’t go missing, it naturally goes missing right into Oleg’s hands. Next door, at home, Oleg does things to his abusive, meth-addicted stepfather, Anzor (Karel Roden), that involves employing the business end of said gun. What spins from this leaves everyone running scared, with Kramer bringing in hilarious pimps who freely call themselves “Mac Daddies,” kind-hearted prostitutes who do the right thing when properly locked and loaded, a creepy New Jersey couple who kidnap and kill children in a sleazy child-porn ring, and a hockey game that closes the show as if it were “Holiday on Ice – Gangsta Style.”

And that’s not even half of it. At my screening, the audience was divided. Eight walked out (one kindly raised a finger to the screen) while others couldn’t contain their stunned laughter in the face of such mounting absurdity. “Running Scared” is a terrible, vile little movie, for sure, but it would be remiss to overlook the fact that with it, a new camp classic is born. For fans of those movies, here is your feast. All others should run the other way.

Grade: BOMB

On video and DVD

WALK THE LINE, directed by James Mangold, written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, 138 minutes, rated PG-13.

We’ve walked this line before.

Big movie, great cast, Oscar buzz, all riding the rails of a story based on a famous musician’s life. At the end of 2004, two artists received similar treatment – Ray Charles in “Ray” and Bobby Darin in the underwhelming “Beyond the Sea.” This time, it’s Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) whose life comes into focus, with the movie behind standing tall as one of 2005’s best.

In it, director James Mangold follows the defining years of Cash’s life. He takes us from Cash’s difficult childhood in Arkansas to his rise to fame, his struggle with drug addiction, his marital problems with first wife, Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin), the great love he felt for June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), and the moment in which the grayness of an otherwise self-destructive life lifted during his knockout, 1968 show at Folsom State Prison.

There, in front of 2,000 cheering inmates, all of Cash’s frustrations and successes, his disappointments and failures – particularly his failures, which he wore like badges on his black sleeves – allowed him to connect with these men in a performance that arguably was the best of his career.

As with so many biopics focused on musicians, Mangold’s movie is essentially a film about overcoming addiction in order to further one’s path to legend. That familiarity would have done the movie no favors had Mangold not had the strength of subtlety and especially the terrific performances from his cast, who transcend formula by allowing audiences to fully invest themselves in what matters – the budding, turbulent relationship between Cash and Carter.

Giving their best performances to date, Phoenix and Witherspoon each do their own singing while possessing the sort of chemistry that sets their particular ring of fire alive. Though each is nominated for an Academy Award, look for Witherspoon to be the one taking to the podium this Sunday night.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews.