Jim Gaffigan is one of the funniest guys around. He’s had a long and successful career as a stand-up comedian, the rare individual who takes to the stage and keeps it clean. Mr. Gaffigan is also an actor, albeit one who stays true, for the most part, to the character he’s molded — a somewhat fussy and invariably self-effacing everyman who could stand to lose a few pounds. Mr. Gaffigan has made interesting choices when taking on film roles. For every big-budget animated film to which he adds his distinctive warble, Mr. Gaffigan occupies the periphery of entertainments that are more intimate and odd. He played a member of a Pentecostal church in “Them That Follow” (2019); a recently widowed man in the supernatural “Light from Light” (2019); and a frustrated children’s show host in “Linoleum” (2022).The latter was kind of a mess and definitely pretentious. Still, Mr. Gaffigan sold its alternate-reality parable about middle-age middle-America: He made the movie worth seeing. Does Mr. Gaffigan do the same for the debut feature by writer-and-director Daniel André, “Running On Empty”? Mr. Gaffigan was the lead in “Linoleum” and carried the movie. He’s a supporting player in Mr. André’s picture, but walks away with the picture all the same.Barnabas Mortenson, the character is called, and Mr. Gaffigan’s take on this self-involved, over-sexed director of a funeral home is an analeptic. His presence, timing, and intonation light up the proceedings. “Barry” is a man with no filters, little self-awareness, and a tendency toward conversations that gallop into uncomfortable places. Mr. Gaffigan makes lovable a man who finds a corpse sexy: “But maybe that’s just me.”Which isn’t to say that the other performances in “Running On Empty” are negligible. Carolyn Hennessy is hilariously unctuous as the head of a dating agency. Rhys Corio and Clara McGregor are almost preternaturally in sync playing a dum-dum brother and sister. Jay Pharoah, late of “Saturday Night Live,” brings the ruckus as an assistant mortician. And Francesca Eastwood — yes, Clint’s daughter — is spot on as a self-obsessed millennial with a predilection for a rather specialized sexual practice.Lucy Hale in ‘Running On Empty.’ Via LionsgateThe female lead is worth remarking upon: Lucy Hale is a young actress whose open-faced winsomeness does much to mitigate her nose ring — a bugaboo of mine, I’m afraid. As for Keir Gilchrist, he has the unenviable task of assuming the role of lead schmuck. Although Mr. Gilchrist proves adept at managing his responses to the eccentrics around him, he feels miscast or, perhaps, overly-cast. As Mort Mortensen, Mr. Gilchrist is a cloying admixture of Bud Cort, Woody Allen, and Pee Wee Herman.Then again, “Running On Empty” is chock full of contrivances: some of them good, others less so. Mr. André’s “anti-rom-com” is set in a future that is not dissimilar from our own — with the exception that technological advances now enable people to know the exact dates of their deaths. The rub of the plot is that Mort has less than a year to live. Our hero is a pioneer in funereal display in which the deceased is placed within a context favored during life — propped up at a blackjack table, say, or sailing the ocean blue. Mort rides a girly pink bicycle while sporting a corresponding helmet. When he’s offered a “freebie” by a whore with a heart of gold (Leslie Stratton on top of her game), Mort prompts the ire of her semi-competent pimp. And the quirks, they keep on coming.Quite the hodgepodge, this picture, and Mr. André points to a host of influences that he doesn’t quite transcend: “After Hours” (1985), “Five Easy Pieces” (1970), and “The Jerk” (1979). All the while our writer-and-director is more rom-com conventional than he might want to admit — particularly in his use of montage, plot points, and, ugh, song placement. So, yeah, this is a film by a first-timer, but one whose knack with actors does much to mitigate his affectations. “Running On Empty” is best enjoyed for its byways.
