“It’s Cocaine’s World, We’re All Just Living in It”

Written and directed by Jason Cabell
Starring Laurence Fishburne, Nicolas Cage Natalia Reyes
MPAA rating: R for violence and disturbing images, drug use, strong sexual content, and language
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

by Hunter Bush

Near the end of Jason Cabell's solo directorial debut Running with the Devil, a backpack full of drugs falls in a mountain stream and is swept away by the current, which is actually a pretty apt visual metaphor for the film as a whole. This movie is about drugs - cocaine specifically - and the ways in which it is a part of the lives of everyone it encounters, but the whole thing is fairly dispassionate. We meet all these players up and down the totem pole - distinguished by titles like The Cook or The Executioner or The Boss or whatever - but they're hard to care about because this is not really their story, it's cocaine's story. Everyone in this is a supporting player to Cocaine.