The Running Man <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/windows/21/000000/star-half.png"/>

The Running Man

This is Edgar Wright's ninth feature, just a smidge over 20 years since his reputation-making second film, Shaun of the Dead. The older folk reading this might remember the Arnie original from 1987, directed by Starsky himself, Paul Michael Glaser. I vaguely recall that film being silly and comically violent, one of a slew of Schwarzenegger pulp films of the era.

This remake aims for similar stylings, but with a more po-faced, less ludicrous feel. The premise goes that Ben Richards (Glen Powell) needs money to ensure his child gets the proper medicine for her unnamed illness. He's lost his job due to 'insubordination', but really he's just a top bloke looking out for his co-workers.

After promising his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) that he won't try out for the near-suicidal game show The Running Man, he applies for other shows on the sinister Network, and gets selected anyway. Of course, or no movie. The scenes in this part of the film are probably the most successfully written and performed, the psych test a highlight. In fact, the set-up promises more than the final film can deliver.

The first two thirds work pretty well, with solid performances and one specific set piece in a dingy hotel that lifts the film to its highest point. But like many (most?) of Wright's films, he has a lot of trouble finding a satisfying ending. Here, he uses a YouTuber style conspiracy theorist to almost summarise the climax. It feels like a massive CBF copout, possibly budgetary, maybe just a lack of ideas.

In fact, for a film called The Running Man, there's precious little actual running to be seen. Tom Cruise must have been mortified at the lack of cardio work on display. The inventiveness of the hotel sequence is never matched and there are some questionable plotting decisions - Richards' discovery at the hotel, one too many dream sequences, the late entry of Emilia Jones, etc. It's also a little hard to work out Richards' principles - sure, he's justifiably angry throughout but one moment he's sparing the life of a 'hunter', the next he's torching the same bloke. Tonally patchy, to say the least.

On a more positive note, Colman Domingo is very much best on field - his cynically hammy host of the show, Bobby T has the right balance of serious and daft. The positioning of the evil corporation as a TV station, the Network (probably Fox but with a none-too-obvious tip of the hat to the great Sydney Pollack film, Network), feels like a substitute for the US government. Perhaps this was designed as a way to not alienate half of 'Merica. Powell himself is very cautious regarding this, apparently.

One more curiosity to this curate's egg is that The Running Man is the second adaptation of a Richard Bachman novel this year (Bachman being Stephen King's early pen name). In the recent The Long Walk, where incidentally, there's a shitload more walking than there is running is this one, citizens line the roads and paths to cheer on, or simply stare at the competitors. It's like they have CTRL+C - CTRL+V for a couple of scenes in this film too.

The Running Man opened on Nov 13th in Australia.

See also:

Have a gander at the original if you haven't for a while (see above) and if Wright never makes another good film, we'll always have the best TV show ever made, Spaced (1999 - 2001).

(Film stills ©Paramount, 2025)

Comments

Wake Up Dead Man

Wake Up Dead Man (without a comma to be seen) is the third Benoit Blanc mystery, written and directed by Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig stars again as the Foghorn Leghorn-twanging detective but he's a touch overshadowed here by the 'supporting' cast, namely Josh O'Connor as young priest, Jud (Judas anyone?) Duplenticy, Josh Brolin as Monsignor Wicks and Glenn Close as church dogsbody Martha. Though it seems O'Connor is the new big thing, especially in indie films, I find him about as engaging as the weekly supermarket trip. In saying that, he's a pretty good foil for the rest of the characters, who have charisma by the bucketload. Blanc only appears around the start of act two, after all the set-up has been dealt with, in a very similar fashion to the previous films, Knives Out and Glass Onion . We gather that somebody has been killed on Good Friday, and the format for this exposition is a letter that Blanc asks Jud to write to him. This works well enough, (Keigo ...

It Was Just an Accident

The latest from Iranian director Jafar Panahi is a simple, yet brilliant story of a chance encounter with a bastard from the past that oscillates between revenge and forgiveness. We start on an almost uncomfortably close mid-shot of a man and a woman driving at night. They run over a stray dog and the mother explains to her daughter that it was just an accident, setting the stage for other events that may or may not have been accidental. Panahi fills the frame with his protagonists, faces, mostly in states of distress, to the extent that when the screen opens up to show a man digging a makeshift grave in a long shot with vast, lumpy hills in the distance, it's a massive relief of tension. This man is Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who thinks he has stumbled upon Eghbal, (A.K.A. Peg Leg or the Gimp) (Ebrahim Azizi), an Iranian intelligence agent who tortured him years ago. Doubt forces Vahid to enlist other victims to help identify Peg Leg, before any retribution is taken. The film is rid...

Predator: Badlands

So without me really noticing, this franchise has reached NINE films (if you include the two Alien vs Predator crossovers). The last three have been directed (or co-directed) by Dan Trachtenberg, who's also helmed an episode each of the TV shows Black Mirror and The Boys . I've got to say, carry on lad, because this is probably the best Predator film I've seen (let me revisit the Arnie one before I remove that 'probably'). This film starts as a revenge quest that soon morphs into a discourse on dysfunctional families and finding your groove in life. All wrapped up in a gnarly, bloody sci-fi romp. I say blood, in actual fact, none of it is human blood, all characters being either alien or synthetic humanoid. That in itself is one of the film's credits - none of the protagonists are human, and the nominal lead is usually a villain. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is from the Yautja race, the original 'ugly mother-fucker' Predator. The preamble n...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

A few years ago, we hit the S.S.P. (Superhero Saturation Point). And the best way for studios to arrest, or even maybe reverse, the law of diminishing returns is to JUST GIVE IT A FUCKING REST. There's enough residual goodwill in the fan base to guarantee profits....for now. But, as Malcolm Gladwell said, there must be a tipping point. So into this cinematic avalanche slips The Fantastic Four: First Steps , the first film of Phase Six and the thirty seventh overall! It's quite dull for the first 30 minutes, setting up the characters, ensuring the audience understands we're on a slightly different Earth (828), and a different time as well. It only gets going when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) appears and promises everyone death by devouring. She's not going to eat them, she works for a massive space turd called Galactus, played by Finchy himself, Ralph Ineson. He'll do the devouring. Here's the thing - this film is a perfectly serviceable entry, not brilliant,...

Nouvelle Vague

This opening screening of the Perth Festival's Lotterywest Film season is a cinephile's delight. It documents the production of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal feature debut, À Bout de Souffle (or Breathless ). The title refers to the New Wave of French film from the beginning of the 1960s, which railed against the tired, old ways of film-making. Nouvelle Vague actually looks like it was shot on film, it's riddled with scratch marks, there's are many big black dots indicating the end of the reel, and of course, it's in black and white. The director, Richard Linklater, is obviously a huge fan of Breathless . This is a lovingly made, breezy film, that isn't terribly hard-hitting or deep, but is a fine background to one of the classics. The casting is excellent, specifically the Jeans; Godard, Seberg and Belmondo, played by Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin respectively. They all look the part and turn in performances just the right side of parody....

One Battle After Another

Before this film, Paul Thomas Anderson had at least one certifiable classic on his CV in There Will Be Blood . Now, make that two. In saying this, most of his films range from good to brilliant. This is his second adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel (after the uneven but interesting Inherent Vice ) and it looks at the lives of modern American revolutionaries, notably members of French 75. The group are apparently named after a WWI weapon, and then a cocktail, both of which have something of a kick. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, The Rocket Man, who makes the ordnance for the group and is in a relationship with fellow revolutionary, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). A combination of a run-in with Sean Penn's Colonel Steven Lockjaw, and a rash killing of a security guard triggers more interest in the group, and so a roundup begins. Perfidia is caught, then forced to name names before doing a runner. But not before she has a daughter with Bob, whom he is left to raise on the run. After this f...

Don't Worry Darling

Here's a film that's had more said about the bullshit around it than the film itself. Therefore, I'll try to keep it relevant. This is Olivia Wilde's second feature and she's a bit of a dab hand at this directing lark. I haven't seen her debut, Booksmart , but have heard good things. In a nutshell, Don't Worry Darling (errant comma notwithstanding) is a stylish, speculative drama, with a patina of utopia-cum-dystopia that masks something far more commonplace and unsettling. Florence Pugh is the dutiful 1950s hausfrau of Harry Styles, who live in a postcard perfect sunny, desert community, presumably near the West coast of the US. Styles' Jack works for Chris Pine's pseudo-cult leader, Frank, in a mysterious compound just out of the town of Victory. Pugh's Alice spends her days with other wives, shopping, practicing ballet or getting pissed up. All's going swimmingly until one of Alice's friends, Margaret (Kiki Layne), begins to ask quest...

Final Cut

Around 15 minutes into this French remake of a Japanese zombie comedy I found myself wondering if this might be the worst film of the year, and even a bit guilty for suggesting Merv see it with me. Imagine my surprise, dear Viz readers, to be happily proven wrong. This is a great lark. The original, One Cut of the Dead , from 2017, seems to be a virtual template, aside from a few clever story angles that connect the two. In a gory nutshell, it concerns a film crew attempting to make a low-budget zombie film in an abandoned events hall, when a bunch of real zombies begin to queer the pitch. Directed (and adapted) by Michel Hazanavicius, of The Artist fame, this opened the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022. It stars one of my favourite actors, Roman Duris as Remi, the director, and Bérénice Bejo as Nadia, who has a fantastic reason for giving up acting. Their daughter, Romy, is played by the actual director's daughter, Simone Hazanavicius (also step-daughter of Bejo, it's all get...

Bugonia

Another curious film from the master of the askew, Yorgos Lanthimos. This comes on the heels of his previous film, Kinds of Kindness and I feel that it takes its theme from one of the three stories in that triptych, even though it's based on a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet! Bugonia opens with shots of bees pollinating flowers, accompanied by a voice over from Jesse Plemons, praising the insect. The importance of the bees runs throughout the film. We soon understand that Plemons' character Teddy, isn't quite all there, illustrated by his contention that the Andromedans live among us and are preparing earth for destabilisation or destruction. Teddy lives with his autistic cousin Don, played by neurodivergent newcomer, Aidan Delbis. In his awkward innocence, and maybe purity, he's the moral centre of the film. Teddy, as mastermind of the ambitious plot, identifies high ranking executive Michelle (Emma Stone) as an alien and so the cousins kidnap her and ...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog