Runner is not to be confused with Gal Gadot’s hilariously awful The Runner, which I had fun reviewing recently. This one is just Runner, without the The. It’s leaner, so straight away you know it’s going to be better.
The leanness doesn’t extend to the lead actors, though. Let’s face it – you can’t get much leaner than Gal Gadot in spandex. Runner stars the ‘one gigantic motherfucker’ of our age.
That’s right, it’s mister conkers-in-a-condom himself, Alan Ritchson.
Luckily for Ritchson, he doesn’t have to spend the entire movie engaging in muscle-sapping cardio like Gadot did. His exceptional gainz need to be protected at all costs.
Runner means something different in this context. The movie opens with a dictionary definition in case we were confused. It refers to someone who couriers stuff around, legally and… not so legally.
You may laugh at the movie providing a definition of the word Runner, but it actually makes sense. Did you know the word ‘run’ has the most meanings of any word in the English language? Guess how many? You’re way off. It’s 645.
I’ll keep this review spoiler free.
Deliver The Liver
Ritchson plays Hank Malone (proper action movie name, well done). Hank is a former Navy SEAL living in Brisbane, Australia and working as a runner. You assume his job must involve something illegal, but his early runs, like delivering a bird, seem innocuous. It’s like his boss put out a Craigslist advert for odd courier jobs that even DoorDash won’t touch.
Hank’s next job involves picking up Owen Wilson’s Ben Bishop at the airport and delivering him and a donor’s liver to a sick young girl in hospital.
But a Columbian drug cartel won’t liver alone. They want the organ for themselves and are willing to shoot up half of Queensland to get it.
This simple premise provides a neat jumping off point for a familiar but entertaining, and surprisingly hardcore, action comedy.
Comfortably Formulaic
It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but Runner is formulaic in the best possible way. The stakes are high (we frequently cut to the sick girl and her mother in hospital), the clock is ticking (the liver has a shelf life of a few hours and must be kept under a certain temperature), and everyone has a valid reason for doing what they’re doing.
Hank’s motivation for going through Hell to deliver the liver is clichéd but credible, and even the bad guys have a genuine cause.
Hank and Ben’s double act is the backbone of the movie, but I wasn’t totally sold on it. Ritchson plays a man of few words, haunted by his past (like in War Machine). Wilson plays Owen Wilson – enthusiastic and verbose.
Physically, Ritchson is massive and Wilson looks tiny in comparison. Hank is a former SEAL and Ben suffers panic attacks.
Their contrasting characters provide the catalyst for some squabbling and perfectly serviceable banter. However, Wilson tries a little too hard to be funny at times and Ritchson plays it too straight. Their chemistry isn’t non-existent, but it’s not in the same league as Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin in Midnight Run.
Running Out Of Steam?
I thought Runner would run out of steam towards the end, but the third act is the best part of the movie. The comedy gets dropped in favour of brutal action and real stakes.
The script is smart enough to pull a couple of surprises, so you don’t feel like the movie is on rails, heading to a predictable finish. Little moments keep you engaged until the end.
You might wonder why Hank doesn’t just call the police. You might also wonder why the Columbian cartel are in Australia, why they speak Portugese, and how they are able to drive around with a locally recruited biker gang, shooting up the Gold Coast mostly unopposed.
Don’t worry about it. The movie just goes with it and asks you to do the same. I enjoyed the sense of anarchy.
Now that I think about it, Runner would make a great Mad Max movie. Set it in the early days of the apocalypse and keep the liver maguffin. The cartel/biker gang can be the marauders. Ritchson is Max (obviously), and Wilson is comedy sidekick.
I’m probably only thinking of it because of Runner’s Australian setting and multiple car chases, but I think it would work.
Overall, Runner is a decent old school action movie. Like its star, it contains little fat and clocks in at 97-minutes. It’s formulaic, but more than a cheap copy of better movies. It knows the beats of the genre that it needs to hit and does so pretty well. I would watch this one again.
