Four or five days ago I did a phoner with Hit and Run producers Kim Waltrip and Jim Casey, who have a company called Kim & Jim Productions. They’re a bit formal and guarded, but nice. Hit and Run opens today with a Rotten Tomatoes hoi polloi rating of 67%. I was mixed on it myself, but I loved the writing. Here’s the mp3.
(l.) Kim Waltrip and (r.) Jim Casey, producers of Hit and Run, co-chairs of Kim & Jim Productions.
“Much of Hit and Run is a very cleverly written, refreshingly original, angular-attitude comedy that reminded me (in the early stages, at least, and in portions throughout) of David O. Russell‘s Flirting With Disaster (’96),” I wrote last week, “and that is high praise indeed. That classic comedy had inspired character flavor, unusual detours and flaky oddball dialogue, and so does Hit and Run. And while this stuff was happening during last night’s premiere screening, I was delighted.”
One of our topics was the fact that Kim is a moderate Republican — far from a crime but certainly a curiosity in this overwhelming liberal industry. In her defense she’s a “green” Republican who believes in conservation and gay marriage and is generally liberal-ish on social issues. I didn’t ask her if she supports Romney-Ryan — that would have been an antagpnistic question under the circumstances.