Hawkzino’s review
I managed to catch a screening of Edgar Wright’s The Running Man a day before general release. I missed the small print that said the screening included subtitles. There is always a price to pay.
I will keep this as spoiler-free as possible.
The Running Man is a dystopian sci-fi action movie set in an unspecified year in the future. A powerful network controls the airwaves and keeps the population occupied with manipulative and barbaric television shows.
It is based on the 1982 Richard Bachman/Stephen King novel of the same name. Weirdly, the book is set in 2025, and much of The Running Man’s subtext about media manipulation feels uncomfortably relevant today.
Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, an unemployed everyman who needs money to buy his daughter medicine so she doesn’t die of a preventable illness. To get it, he has to sign up for a game show called The Running Man, where they hunt you down and kill you. There is always a price to pay.
Unlike the 1987 adaptation of The Running Man, this version sticks admirably close to the plot of the book, with enough embellishment to boost the action quota and spectacle.
The audition/screening process that Richards undergoes is brief and feels rushed. Several game shows are on offer, but Richards gets stuck with The Running Man or nothing because he’s an angry, undesirable who has been fired multiple times for standing up for workers’ rights.
I can buy Glen Powell as a moral man fighting for his family and workers’ rights, but he doesn’t convince as an angry man, even though the movie keeps telling us he is. He can act angry but lacks a real edge. He should have just played it stoically.
Hollywood, Not Hardcore
Fellow contestant Laughlin (Katy O’Brien) is gender swapped from the book, but only just. We see the other contestants only occasionally. Most of the runtime is spent with Richards, apart from a few cutaways to the show.
Five ‘Hunters’ pursue Richards, as well as regular cops and the occasional mercenary. Lee Pace plays Chief Hunter Mccone under a mask for most of the movie. The other hunters are underdeveloped and could do with more personality.
The action sequences are thrilling and well-choreographed. Michael Cera stands out as an unpredictable ally to Richards. But while the movie entertains, it never quite reaches the level of craziness and anarchy that it should be aiming for. It tells the same story as the book, but files away its cutting edge.
The Running Man tries to create a sense of fun while dealing with weighty themes, but ends up falling somewhere between the two and doesn’t do justice to either.
The ending is a good example, which I won’t spoil here. It plays out similarly to the book but differently. You can tell the screenwriters have given it a lot of thought, and it all makes sense, but ultimately it comes across as Hollywood when it should be hardcore.
That said, I had a good time with The Running Man and found myself being swept along with Richards’ journey for most of the movie. It isn’t the old school romp I was hoping for, but nor is it completely neutered. It treads lightly around the totalitarian regime that underpins the Network and focuses on criticising the media rather than getting bogged down with too much politics.
You can decide if that’s a good thing.
Boba Phil’s Review
I know Hawkzino has just reviewed it, and I haven’t read his yet, so I can give my unbiased opinion. Also, Wrenage loves the original book and sent me a message about the ending. I haven’t read that either yet. I’ve never read the book; I’m only familiar with the Arnie movie, which I’ve seen several times.
In a nutshell, The Running Man is tremendous fun.
You know the cast and crew. I was happy to see a Wright movie, and man, he delivers a cracking movie. I mean, I would love for him to go back to the style of the Cornetto Trilogy, but the man knows how to make a movie.
The Story
We meet Ben Richards (Powell), who’s begging for his job back. He has his 2-year-old with him, not as emotional blackmail, but to keep himself kicking his old boss’s ass. Basically, Richards is all of us, living hand to mouth, just trying to get by, with a loved one being ill, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
With nowhere else to turn, he tries out for a TV show to win some money. He promises his wife he won’t do The Running Man, and he ends up on the Running Man. Obviously, it would have been a very silly movie if he hadn’t.
I’m not going to spoil the rest of the story, but the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper the longer Richards plays the game.
The Cast
We all love Arnie; his movies are the best. What I like about Powell is that he’s more like me, you know, average. Arnie is some kind of Man Mountain, and I would never look like that. Because of this, I can never really identify with Arnie in the original, but I could with Powell.
The guy is very cool and his Richards is an intelligent guy. This makes him much more likeable than Arnie, and you put yourself in Powell’s place, more than I would in Arnie’s.
With the casting, I did feel a little let down by everyone else, apart from Brolin.
I thought Bobby T, who’s the host of the Running Man show, should have been Idris Elba. Colman Domingo was good, but just not great. He was on the screen, but didn’t have the presence of someone like Elba.
The same with the Hunters, the people trying to kill the Running Man, they were just sort of there. Someone like Sam Rockwell would have given them a bit more character. I am being overly picky, but Brolin was the only bad guy you could get your ‘teeth into’ to hate.
Katy O’Brien is in this movie, but not for long, thank goodness.
The Wright Man
As I said, I’m a big fan of Wright as a director. The first two of the Cornetto movies are awesome, with The World’s End a little lacklustre. Baby Driver is an amazing good technical movie, which I still love. I’m a big fan of Last Night in Soho as well.
Wright doing The Running Man seemed like an odd choice, but his direction is spot on! The movie is technically excellent, the performances are great, and the action really kicks off, in a good way. Honestly, I found myself ducking and diving in my seat. It was great, and I was smiling through most of the movie.
There are gentle bits of humour, but not ‘Witiki’ humour. There are subtle little jokes for you to smile or giggle at, I never found myself rolling my eyes at anything.
The big thing that was missing was a good soundtrack. I know Wright started making music videos back in the day, and his movies have amazing soundtracks. The Running Man didn’t have any real bangers in it at all, which was a bit of a shame.
Overall
The Running Man starts off a little schmaltzy, but that’s just setting up Ben. When Act 2 starts, when Richards starts running, damn, the movie kicks it up a gear. The action is really, really good; in fact, my only complaint is that there wasn’t enough of it! His action direction was spot on.
The movie delves into a subplot of the false face of the media, which was well done. Before the show starts, they introduce Richards, not as a man trying to save his family, but as something else. This is done to boost the ratings and to hate the cooperation, and it works.
I couldn’t help but think about the BBC recently editing Trump’s speech. What everyone heard and the truth are two different things. This movie takes that a step further and shows you cannot believe what you see any more. A.I. has shown us that.
I’m not a hugely political person, so for me, this subplot was good, not preachy and ‘believable’.
The entire world that Wright has built for The Running Man is amazing. It’s a ‘not too distant’ future, but entertainment has gone back to the days of the gladiators, killing off those who you’re told deserve it. I could see the Running Man coming to a TV near me soon.
Oh, the opening credits of the show are awesome! Then, the end, well, it ends, it is satisfying, but not ‘the Falcon flying into the second Death Star’ ending. I wasn’t really jumping out of my seat, but I was happy with the ending.
I loved The Running Man and giving it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars. That may go up with more viewings, as I will be seeing it again, more than a few times.
