My review was written in February 1990 after watching the movie on CBS/Fox video cassette.
"The Runnin' Kind" is an unsuccessful rites of passage pic about the music industry. Given a brief theatrical release last year by UA, this 1987 production has weak home video prospects.
David Packer toplines as a high school grad from Shake Heights who elects to sow some wild oats over the summer in L. A. He's trying to find a pretty femme drummer named Thunder (Brie Howard) who he was instantly attracted to when he saw he playing with a band at an Akron night club. Very predictable story line by helmer Max Tash and pic's co-star Pleasant Gheman (a Melanie Griffith type who plates a singer in an all-girl band) shifts audience interest quickly from Packer to the music types, though he (and his increasingly uninteresting plight) stays center stage.
Film might have played better if it focused on Howard and Gehman's points of view as women struggling to make it in the music biz. Unfortunately, even vehicles with name talent such as "Satisfaction" and "The All-Nighter") have had trouble finding audiences.
Songs are merely okay with nothing strong enough to carry the picture. Likewise, the cast is ho-hum, though Gehman exhibits a pleasant, offbeat screen presence. As with "Howard the Duck", the Ohio atmosphere of the opening reels is not expressed adequately via L. A. lensing.
