Movie Review: The Running Man

After hitting it big with his sophomore feature, 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, English director Edgar Wright has become a favorite of many film lovers. Through movies like Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver, and more, he has developed a distinctive flashy and frenetic style that all but assures a project with his name attached will be a treat to watch on multiple levels. His latest, an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man, marks the first time however, that most would be unable to identify the movie as his. While it still has plenty going for it, that marks it as at least a touch of a disappointment.

In the relatively near future, the United States has become a police state controlled by a few large corporations. One of the most powerful of these operates an omnipresent network known as FreeVee, which airs a variety of reality-competition shows with cruel and even deadly consequences for the losers and potentially vast riches for the winners. The biggest prize of all awaits anyone who can survive The Running Man, in which 3 contestants try to remain alive for 30 days while being hunted by the network’s elite squad of mercenaries who can act on tips received by the general public in exchange for small cash rewards of their own. The odds of winning are slim and across the dozens of seasons produced so far, only one contestant has even come close.

Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is in dire straits. His child is gravely ill, he has been blacklisted from the blue-collar jobs available to him, and his wife Sheila’s (Jayme Lawson) job as a waitress at a gentleman’s club does not provide enough money to get the treatment they need. Feeling hopeless, he takes the only option he thinks he has left and enters the dangerous competition. His rage at the injustice of the ruling system begins to earn him fans among the downtrodden masses, mirroring their own, and he begins to find unexpected supporters. But it still may not be enough to outsmart the network, which doesn’t exactly play fair.

While the story is set in the future, the set-up and events feel so coded towards many of society’s current ills that The Running Man can sometimes make for a bleak viewing experience, though having these systemic problems so front and center isn’t necessarily a bad thing (even if it is a touch ironic that it’s coming from a studio that now belongs to the Ellisons). Fortunately, even if Wright’s usual visual panache is largely absent, he still knows how to keep an audience entertained. The full-throttle action sequences are numerous and thrilling and Powell’s natural charisma helps make Ben an easy character to root for.

There are some thematic similarities between this and another recent King adaptation, The Long Walk, but they are different enough to coexist so close to each other on the calendar. Walk is the better movie, but this one is much more of a crowd pleaser, even if it risks inspiring some fairly harsh self-reflection in viewers. This may not be Wright at his best, but there are more than enough inspired moments to make it worth a watch as well as a warning that, while not exactly subtle, lends it some urgency. ★★★½