
Zoe is a senior in high school, struggling to accept the recent death of her mother ( Radha Mitchell, Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland, The Crazies). The story itself focuses on an estranged teenager, Zoe Hull ( Isabel May, Alexa & Katie Netflix series). Most importantly, Run Hide Fight works as a movie. Moreover, they have done a credible job of addressing the issue forthrightly even though, as a narrative film, it indulges in creative embellishments to increase the drama and raise the stakes of the conflict. Writer-director Kyle Rankin along with producers Amanda Presmyk and Dallas Sonnier deserve credit for taking this issue seriously within a narrative film’s story structure. Given their rising prevalence, the unwillingness of narrative filmmakers to grapple with these events could be considered a sign of cultural neglect or denial. More and more school districts (and colleges) are instituting active shooter training. In Florida, a school “guardian” program allows trained non-law enforcement teachers and staff to carry guns for defensive purposes. The potential for mass casualty shootings are now a considered part of school policy. Three quarters of these shootings occurred on a high school, middle school, or elementary school campus. Fifty-five school shootings happened in 2019 alone. Over the past 15 years, school shootings averaged about 17 per year according to data compiled on Wikipedia. Most school shootings are small and contained, involving one shooter and a handful of victims.īut after about 2005, the number of school shootings and their scale ticked up significantly. Since then, large scale shootings on school campuses, including colleges and universities, have made headlines with disquieting regularity. The helplessness and brutality of the murders shocked the nation. Two high schoolers in Colorado planned and implemented a systematic attack that killed twelve students, a teacher, and injured 21 before the two perpetrators committed suicide. While school shootings have occurred for decades, national awareness and widespread concern coalesced around the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. For many students, and almost all parents, each real-life shooting becomes seared into our consciousness as a terrifying potential reality. The Uncomfortable Reality of School Shootings in the U.S.Ĭrafting a successful narrative film from such controversial content is challenging at best. In short, Run Hide Fight hits notes sorely missing in public discourse on school violence.

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It’s grounded in certain uncomfortable realities that should be in the forefront of current discussions on school violence and how to respond to active shooters. But the story is well-crafted, and the content is tailored to contribute to an important contemporary social issue. School shootings and their trauma are not fantasy.

I knew this narrative film about a high school mass shooting, if done well, was likely to hit a raw nerve.Īfter all, I am a martial-arts trained self-defense coach, a faculty member at a public university whose office sits just a few hundred feet from the site of a deadly school shooting, and mentor to students who have lost friends in other mass shootings (including the Parkland high school and the Tallahassee Hot Yoga shooting).
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I had mixed feelings when I queued up the action movie Run Hide Fight on the Daily Wire. Single Issues of The Independent Review.International Economics and Development.
