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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)

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