Rating: 
Summary: Wait a Minute!
Review: A great, fast-paced movie with intelligent social commentary. Not only is this movie an adrenaline rush, but it's also a visual delight. There are little visual cues to pick up here and there, for example the roadway that forms infin -- the Greek symbol for infinity -- in the opening sequence.The actors are clearly talented, particularly the two leads. Even though Manni and Lola have very litte screen time together, their chemistry is evident throughout. Somehow, Potente and Bleibtreu make is incredibly easy to see why Lola would risk so much for her boyfriend. But, having watched the movie I was left thinking: Wait a minute...if the homeless man used 700 marks to buy the bicycle --> then there is money missing from the bag Manni delivered to his mob boss --> who will surely kill him for this discrepancy. Is this supposed to be noticed, or am I obscenely obsessive and over analytical? Hmmmm
Rating: 
Summary: She can scream too...
Review: Loud enough to shatter glass. There are three keys to the success of this remarkable German language film (with English subtitles): originality of conception, crisp direction and editing, and two attractive stars to play the leads. The stars are Franka Potente, who plays ruby red-haired Lola, daughter of a banker. She is smitten with Manni, handsome young man played by Moritz Bleibtreu, who forgot to keep his grip on a bag containing 100,000 Deutsche marks belonging to his mobster boss. He is to hand over the money in twenty minutes, but he lost it on the train. (It was picked up by a homeless man.) Manni calls Franka and tells her the desperate straits he is in. He says his only out is to rob a store. She says no wait, she can come up with something. What that something is is dear old dad. She looks at the clock. It's twenty minutes until twelve. So Lola starts running to get to the bank and then to Manni before the stroke of noon. If you've seen Truffaut's Les Quatre cents coup (1959) then you know where director Tom Tykwer may have gotten the idea of showing us a Lola who runs like the wind. Truffaut used a sustained shot of his young hero running to convey an uplifting sense of freedom amid action. It worked for Truffaut and it works for Tykwer. Franka, running in nicely fitted pants and tank top (with her white lace bra strap discretely showing) really is a delight to watch. And like Truffaut, Tykwer does not let us see the runner sweat. There is a kind of effortless release, without any straining of our lungs. It is like running in our dreams. What Tykwer does with time is even more interesting. He has Lola run from her home to the bank to Manni three times, each time with a slight difference in the early events, leading to differences in the events to come. In the British movie Sliding Doors (1998) starring Gwyneth Paltrow, something of the same sort was tried with Gwyneth playing out two different permutations of her life based on decisions leading to differing scenarios. I'm also reminded of the brilliant American film, Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan in the way some of the events are played over again. Here the scene as Lola runs by her mother on the telephone is the same three times, but then the differences begin. It might also be said that this movie is the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics brought to cinema. Or perhaps Tykwer was influenced by complexity theory in which a slight change in initial conditions can lead to large changes later on. The story (or rather stories: there are three of them) strain credulity at times. The awful things her "father" says to her in the first accounting seems too harsh and stupid to be real. The co-incidence of Manni's spotting the bum on the bicycle in the third tale seems a bit too lucky to be believed. And the allotment of twenty minutes of time in the three sequences was a bit off. However some of the other events seemed to me to be plausible or at least very clever and therefore allowable in an artistic sense. That the man in the ambulance regains a steady heart beat because she holds his hand is something this old guy can believe. And the cops mistaking her for a bystander in the bank robbery seems like credible cop behavior to me. And for those who think that the casino event was too much to believe, consider this: Assuming that the roulette wheels in Germany have both a zero and a double zero, the odds against betting on the number twenty and hitting it on consecutive spins of the wheel are 1/36 times 1/36 which equals about 77/100,000 or about 1300 to 1. It's a long shot, but nothing like winning the lottery. Incidentally she had in the bag 115,600 Deutsche marks (her initial 100 marks x 34 x 34). For those of you who haven't seen this remarkable film, consider this: it lasts 80 minutes, but it will seem like fifteen. The "throbbing techno score" is haunting and there are some nice action sequences. This is the kind of (R-rated, however) movie you can see with your teenaged son, although he would probably prefer to see it with his buds.
Rating:
Summary: Franka Potente as brilliant as the film
Review: One story with three different endings almost as bizarre as the next with a pulse racing soundtrack. Franka Potente gives a riveting performance and her screams can shatter glass. One of Europe's more brillian entrees from director Tom Twyker. Strangely, the soundtrack and the movie as just inseparable. Without the music, it would be just a good movie. With it, it is defying imagination. A must see. After you see her in the Bourne Identity, you'll want to see why Matt Damon refused the role unless Franka Potente got the part. You might have been a little disappointed in the Bourne Identity's near lack of believeable story, but you won't be in Run Lola Run. ...And, she did it way better than Forest. :) -Felecia Constance Rowe, Chairwoman, Felecia Constance Rowe, Inc.
Rating:
Summary: pumping stylish funny
Review: Choice of dubbed or subtitled, went with subtitled, and as with all good foreign language films, got into the film enough to not even notice.
The pumping soundtrack drives the film along nicely, the two leads are both very good, and the film is quickly set-up and running.
The twists of fate, are amusing and quirky, and you cant help but finish the film with a grin on your face.
Rating:
Summary: You will be exhausted at the end!
Review: Very fast movie, too many things happen in just seconds, few moments to breathe. It's absolutely non-boring and takes your heartbeats to the top. The music is also very fast, it makes an excellent complement. Lola's anxiety to get the money and meet her boyfriend before 20 minutes is transmitted to the viewer. Many elements are found in the movie, for example: animations, split screens and flashing pictures. The look of Lola is very peculiar: a young girl with intense red hair, she is difficult to forget. The same story repeats three times, however, each time, different things happen; all of them caused directly or indirectly by Lola herself, and each version of the story has a completely opposite ending. The message is clear: Everything we do, even the most insignificant action, affect drastically our future and the other people's destiny.
Rating: 
Summary: Run Lola, Run Lola, run Lola and again run Lola
Review: I did not get it. She is just running and running and again running. No philosophical idea. No point. The movie is telling us the same story in three different versions. Why? Boring...
Rating:
Summary: Watch it again and again
Review: A very creative, smart, hip, and stylish film. The soundtrack is excellent (if you like techno).
Rating:
Summary: One of the best foreign films of all time!
Review: This is one of the best foreign films of all time, next to Amelie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Amores Perros, and Hard Boiled. It is the most fast paced movie I have ever seen, and a unique way of showing things. The soundtrack is great, and the pace is one of the best ever. Though it is a 81 min. film, it does not seem rushed, it seems like Lola did everything she could and you as well as her are satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: A great soundtrack for an awesome film!
Review: This soundtrack is so good, many other films (and commercials) have taken from it. It provides a true adrenaline rush, and captures the essence of the film... so if you haven't, see the movie! At least it will give you something to talk about.
Rating:
Summary: "Everything was on time, except for you"
Review: Run Lola Run (called Lola Rennt in its native Germany) is the movie that perhaps best defines the dissafectionist undercurrent present in the final decade of the twentieth century. Set in a stark urban landscape, it proceeds at the same frenetic pace as its protagonist - scarlet-coiffured Lola - as she attempts to save her boyfriend's life. Lola's frenzied desperation is echoed in the beat-driven techno-style score, and through the jerky camera work and rapid shot sequences. Instead of 90 continuous minutes of flowing film, Run Lola Run is split into three scenarios, with widely divergent outcomes. Manni has inadvertently left a bag containing a large amount of money destined for a Berlin Mafia syndicate on the train. He rings his girlfriend, Lola, in a panic, telling her that he needs 100,000 marks in 20 minutes or he's as good as dead. Lola hits the ground running and the three segments follow her quest for fast cash. The movie ponders the age-old question of how one seemingly insignificant action can alter the course of destiny; in this case it is Lola's differing interactions with a boy and his dog on the staircase of her apartment block (shown in a cartoon) at the beginning of each scenario that sets the scene for her subsequent varied modes of action. Director Tom Tykwer lets the camera do the talking, and the sometimes overwhelming barrage of verbosity thrown at the viewer in so many modern films is thankfully absent here. Among the many interesting features of the movie is the use of the flash-forward sequence. Minor characters are given depth by the use of a fast-paced photo montage showing what the future holds for them. It is touches like this, which make this film a cinematic masterpiece and a contemporary classic.
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