Of all the absurdities in "Running Scared" -- and there are many -- it's hard to top this.

New Line Productions Paul Walker stars in "Running Scared." "Running Scared" Rating: R for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content. Starring: Paul Walker. Director: Wayne Kramer. Related article: Actor stars in back-to-back films that have very different audiences "Running Scared" web site

Ten-year-old Oleg (Cameron Bright), on the run from his meth-cooking abusive Russian stepfather, the cops and warring mobsters, ducks into an unlocked van in a parking lot looking for a safe place to hide. Turns out there are two other children inside and the seemingly middle-class couple who return with ice cream cones are really kiddie-porn peddlers ... for starters.

Oleg is hustled off to a locked apartment -- just one stop during a frantic night-long odyssey that will bring him in contact with a homeless crack addict, a hooker not only with a heart of gold but a GED study guide, a pimp who proclaims himself "mac daddy," and enough violent, foul-mouthed, stripper-ogling gangsters to make Tony Soprano look like a gentleman criminal.

After an opening scene designed to be somewhat misleading, the action flashes back to 18 hours earlier and a drug deal gone bad. Chunks of head are blown away, blood sprays on killers' faces like a Jackson Pollock painting, and bullets are photographed in loving slo-mo before they leave enormous holes in people or things.

When it turns out that one of the dead men is a cop, a low-level gangster and witness named Joey Gazelle (Paul Walker) is ordered to get rid of the weapon that killed him. Instead, he takes the silver snub-nosed .38 and stashes it in his basement, unaware his son, Nicky, and friend Oleg are watching.

When Joey and his family sit down for dinner, he learns the gun isn't where he left it. A bullet from next door, where Oleg lives, comes spiraling through the window. Oleg had had enough of his abusive stepfather, who shows more affection for his movie hero John Wayne than for his wife and stepson.

Oleg shoots him and goes on the run, which sends Joey on his trail so he can retrieve the weapon before the mob goons or cops, corrupt or otherwise, do.

"Running Scared," written and directed by Wayne Kramer ("The Cooler"), pays homage in the credits to filmmakers Sam Peckinpah, Walter Hill and Brian DePalma. It's shot in a gritty, cool-color way, giving the movie the look your TV gets when you fiddle with the tint and brightness settings. That makes for one beautiful scene where the blue eyes of Walker and Bright glow in the moody darkness.

However, the story pivots on ridiculous coincidences -- apparently there's only one restaurant in Grimley, N.J., and everyone turns up there -- over-the-top torture or suicidal impulses and the sorts of scenes where mobsters yammer before pulling the trigger and sometimes pay the price for it.

Putting a gun in the hands of 10-year-olds seems wrong, especially when you're seeing the movie on a day when a local high school and nearby Downtown streets saw gunplay. Bright is no stranger to weirdness, though. In "Birth," he was the boy Nicole Kidman thought was her reincarnated husband, and he was the clone of a dead boy in "Godsend."

"Running Scared" is like the proverbial car wreck; you slow down to watch if the coroner's wagon or an ambulance is pulling up. You can't quite believe where it's going next -- although its ending insults the audience -- and how it's yanking you along as a reluctant, blood-spattered hostage.