I heard about this movie at some point last year when the guys at Gabbing Geek and I were putting together the annual “Year of Anticipation” post. At the time, I didn’t know much about the movie aside from it had Glen Powell, and I like him normally, but he’s no Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I’m not all that cool with seeing someone remake Arnold’s stuff. Somehow, I missed that this movie was coming from director Edgar Wright, and yeah, now it has my interest. Wright’s work is, if nothing else, always trying to do something cool and different. Given his executive producer status, it looked like Wright based his script more on Stephen King’s original story.
Anyway, the movie is out now, and even features a stealth Schwarzenegger appearance.
In some dystopian future time, Ben Richards (Powell) is an angry man who has trouble finding work after the network that runs everything essentially blacklisted him for doing things like trying to protect his co-workers from dangerous radiation. His wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) has a job as a club waitress, but they aren’t making enough money to get basic health care for their sick daughter Cathy (Alyssa and Sienna Benn), who may be dying of the flu. Without any other options, Ben heads down to the network to audition for a game show, the most popular of which is The Running Man, a show where contestants run for their lives, guaranteed a billion dollars if they can survive for 30 days, but to date, no one has. Ben has no intentions of signing up for that one (other shows can less deadly and still dangerous but are less profitable). However, Ben’s psyche profile, anger at just about everyone, and general physical health gets him a meeting with network executive Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) with the promise of an immediate cash bonus to his family, a new identity and location, and more money for every day and week Ben survives. Seeing no other options, Ben takes his chances with The Running Man.
The odds, of course, are stacked against Ben. The audience, both in-studio and at-home, are fed a pack of lies about Ben and his family, the show’s host Bobby T (Colman Domingo) is a naturally charismatic man, and yes, Killian is not above things like deep fakes to make Ben look as horrible as possible, a man who allegedly hates America and all it stands for. Heck, I’ll even admit that I found the show’s theme a bit of an earworm. However, there are people out there who are angry at the state of the country, people who will help Ben, though often for their own reasons that Ben may or may not care about. If Ben actually beats the game before the hunters, led by the mysterious McCone (Lee Pace), get him first, he may end up doing far more than simply winning a billion dollars.
Here’s the thing: Edgar Wright has some talents that really work for a movie like this one. The action scenes are well-done, and there’s some good comedy, mostly involving a visit to the house of a rebel played by Michael Cera, and there’s not much for me to complain about in regards to the technical aspects of the movie. Powell is a charming lead actor, and yeah, there is a lot of heavy-handed satirical jabs at modern times here, but that was probably baked into the original story to a certain extent. If anything, it probably isn’t a coincidence that the other popular TV show the characters keep tuning into is some kind of Keeping Up with the Kardashians show. It’s not a subtle movie, but the story of The Running Man almost certainly wasn’t meant to be.
That said, it’s a movie that can’t quite sustain itself. The final few minutes of the movie don’t work all that well. Without saying too much about the ending, it feels like it was tacked on by a studio mandate. Whether it was or it wasn’t, it just doesn’t work. I don’t expect much of a really rebellious story from a big studio release, and I don’t think any of the satirical points raised here were all that revolutionary, but I really want an ending that feels more organic than the one here. However, up until that moment, it’s actually a fun movie. Just, yeah, the ending doesn’t work.
Grade: B-
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