Running Free: drama.  Starring Jan Decleir, Lukas Haas, Chase Moore and Arie Verveen.  Written by Jean-Jacques Annaud and Jeanne Rosenberg. Directed by Sergei Bodrov.  Opens June 2nd.

If this isn’t proof that you should never let a horse narrate your movie, I don’t know what is.  Sadly, Running Free is running afoul of any kind of interesting narrative and if I may shamelessly stretch the pun further, running on empty plot-wise. This is a family movie, ostensibly for children, and it plods along at such a slow and joyless cadence that the viewer is only left to ponder the dissonant relationship between the colt and the raspy teen-aged voice that narrates his every movement. 

Set in Africa just on the cusp of world war, a foal is born aboard aship that journeys from Germany to Africa with a cargo of horses. These are the workhorses that will be used to work the coalmines. After the foal is separated from his mother, a young stable boy adopts him, christens him “Lucky” and takes him to live in the stable with the thoroughbred stallion, Caesar.  When the gray mare, Lucky’s mother, comes in search of her foal to nurse him, the arrogant Caesar attacks and mortally wounds her.  The film rather unsubtly doles out this bit of foreshadowing -- Lucky has found a reason to have his revenge against Caesar.  Now both orphaned, Lucky and the boy quickly become best friends in this less than friendly environment. 

Suffering ill treatment at the hands of the cruel stable owner, the two embark on a misadventure that has them fleeing the protective environs of the stable and coal mines into the wide expanse of the surrounding desert in search of a mythic lake. While on their odyssey, they come across some Bush people and a young Bush girl in particular who befriends them. After this short brush with freedom, they return to the stable as enemy planes flying overhead begin bombarding the coal mines.  Again, in another in a series of separations that dominate this movie, the boy is forced aboard a freight train with the escaping workers and stable owner while Lucky is left to fend for himself.  From here, Running Free unfolds with the methodical precision of an assembly line: Lucky transforms from young colt to noble horse as he discovers his freedom in the desert.

This is clearly not the languorous meditation that was Jean-Jacques Annaud’s earlier work, “The Bear.” His direction on the earlier piece was flawless; the young bear brought to light through vivid scene upon scene of wondrous natural beauty and scene-stealing animal performances.  Maybe it’s just a little known fact that bears make better actors than horses, but as the young colt and later the proud horse, Lucky isn’t able to convey much of a range of emotion beyond the occasional gallop or on-cue whinny.  As it is here, Sergei Bodrov’s direction lacks any focus beyond only the most predictable of staging.  We’re never drawn into the horse’s world despite the ill-conceived attempts with voice-over narration.  For lack of a powerful presence in the film, a character that could show us what is going on, Bodrov resorts to telling us as recompense.  Blame it on “Babe,” but if a horse is going to narrate his story, there is the expectation that his mouth will move with digital precision.  All toothy images of “Mr. Ed” aside, “Babe” has raised the bar and audiences now routinely expect that kind of magic.  Running Free is better saved for a last resort video at the local video store when “Babe” and “The Bear” are already out on loan.