Review:
"The Running Man"
Blu-Ray/DVD Release Date: November 14, 2025 Rating: R Running Time: 134 minutes Meet the new Running Man. Not the same as the old Running Man. Co-writer/director Edgar Wright’s The Running Man is not a remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 sci-fi dystopian action vehicle but a faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel, which he published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Our hero Ben Richards is still a contestant on a popular reality show designed to distract the working class from their economic woes and the oppressive behavior of the government and the one-percenters it rewards and protects. Unlike Schwarzenegger, who had to survive the night, Austin’s very own Glen Powell must spend 30 days on the run and hiding from the game show’s five hunters (led by Lee Pace’s brutal Chief McCone). Not an easy task when you live in a surveillance society and citizens receive rewards to snitch on runners. Also, Powell’s Ben is an unemployed husband and father desperate to pay his sick baby daughter’s medical bills, not a police officer framed for massacring unarmed protestors. The fundamental difference between 1987 and today is that today we are this close to living in a police state informed by radical nationalism than we ever were in Ronald Reagan’s America. So the anti-establishment, anti-fascist themes that King worked into his novel seem all the more timely and relevant, and Wright does not shy away from equating the despotic politics and the socioeconomic turmoil of The Running Man’s America to our own. When Ben participates in a word association exercise during his audition, and reveals his distrust and hatred of the Powers That Be, you sense that the very British Edgar Wright is voicing his own fear and disgust with what is going in the United States. To this end, The Running Man feels less like biting satire than documentary. Because, let’s face it, if our current U.S. president has his way, we would be watching the poor and the downtrodden fight for their lives on television right now. The casting of Glen Powell as Ben Richards plays into this. Schwarzenegger is the definitive action hero of his generation, but he and his ilk—then and today—do not possess the same angry and defiant everyman qualities that Powell brings to the role that requires that both brains and brawn. Swelling with bitterness, and displaying a resourcefulness that matches Ben’s motives, the impossibly charismatic Powell makes for a congenial hero who’s easy to root for and an unlikely symbol of hope and resistance. He even gets to have fun donning a disguise or two à la last year’s Hit Man. Unfortunately, Wright gives short thrift to the other contestants participating in the final run of the Running Man’s season. Then again, when you cast former Saturday Night Live player Martin Herlihy as a contestant, you know he’s not going to last long. But Wright makes the mistake of wasting the time and physical prowess of Katy O'Brian. There’s no doubt that O'Brian—so striking as a bodybuilder in last year’s Love Lies Bleeding—could kick Powell’s butt. And the hunters on her trail. But Wright treats her as just another unpromising contestant. One day, someone will give O'Brian’s the action vehicle she needs and deserves. That said, Wright gets a lot of mileage out of Colman Domingo, who is suitably outsized and outrageous as Bobby “Bobby T” Thompson, the host of The Running Man (although nothing can top the 1987 version’s casting of Family Feud’s Richard Dawson as its TV host). And Josh Brolin is suitably insincere and slippery as the silver-tongued television executive Dan Killian, who represents everything crass and exploitative of the reality TV era. While the performances are exception for an action thriller of this nature, The Running Man remains Wright’s most anonymous offering to date. Fans of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy certainly won’t find much of Wright in The Running Man. This is not necessarily an insult. Wright jettisons his usual quirks and idiosyncrasies to tell The Running Man as a straight action film laced with dark humor befitting of the future America it depicts. Maybe this is in deference to the source material or a desire to get his Paul Verhoeven on (the film includes multiple satirical show promos executed with the same free-wheeling bravura Verhoeven perfected with RoboCop and Starship Troopers). The Running Man may not be as heavily stylized as Baby Driver, but it does boasts some of the best action set pieces and shootouts of Wright’s two-decade career. His devotion to King’s story does include retaining in modified form the author’s unsatisfying ending. Yes, the revolution will be televised, contrary to what Gil Scott-Heron told us many decades ago. But this Running Man deserves to cross the finish line with more style and ingenuity. Aired: Nov. 12, 2025. Web site: https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/the-running-man-0 |
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