The Running Man

4 outta 5

The Running Man is the 2^nd adaptation of a Stephen King novel about a dystopian game released in the last few months, the first being The Long Walk, and both novels were published under King’s Richard Bachman pseudonym. Running Man was famously adapted as an ‘80s action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that took “liberties” with the but still conveys that the corporate death game is rigged. This Running Man sticks closer to the novel but goes in its own direction. One thing from the novel the ‘80s version never touched, and is a bit too crazy now, is the hero flying a plane into the evil Network’s headquarters. That doesn’t happen here, but the film definitely features some finale airplane antics.  Co-writer and director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) gives the movie a very kinetic feel with some high-speed action scenes, lots of splatter and funny quips. This may be a dystopian rating driven hellhole that humanity is inevitably careening towards, but it is fun to watch.

Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is trying to provide for his wife and sick daughter, but since he ratted on corporate interests, nobody will hire him. The Network is all media and runs sadistic games people compete in for cash prizes. Ben ends up as a contestant on The Running Man, the deadliest game of all. In the Running Man, contestants must stay alive for 30 days for a 1 billion dollar prize. Citizens report on their location while the contestants are pursued and inevitably killed by Hunters. Ben is overseen by the producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and the game is hosted by the flamboyant and amoral Bobby “Bobby T” Thompson (Colman Domingo). He talks up the chase, narrates the action and makes Ben look like a monster to the public. Ben keeps surviving and the Network makes fake videos of him to get the audience to turn against him. While on the run, Ben finds help in various places, like revolutionaries such as the video making Bradley (Daniel Ezra) and the chaos loving Elton (Michael Cera). But the deadly Hunters may stop Ben’s run in its tracks.

There is a sense of nihilism in this flick but the bitter cynicism and chaotic overkill makes this a lot more fun to sit through than the sometimes overtly bleak Long Walk was. Powell’s Ben has a rage problem, and while he is being assessed for the game, the analyst says he is the most angry person that has ever enrolled in the contest. While on the run, he must record 10-minute videos, and initially he doesn’t care so he records himself taking a nap. When he discovers how the Network’s pollution is making people sick, he reveals the truth in his video, but the Network changes his video to him yelling about how he’s going to kill everyone. When Ben asks Killian about why they don’t just fake the whole thing, Killian says they’ve tried but it’s the unpredictable nature of real humans that makes it more entertaining to watch.

In the 80s film, Killian was the host and producer, played with amazingly jerk perfection by Richard Dawson. Here the producer and host roles are divided into two separate characters, and each actor delivers a banger performance. Brolin as the producer and mastermind slides between charismatic and intimidating, loving Ben’s outbursts as good TV. Ben does some evil deception in the finale that makes him very hateable. Domingo as Bobby the Host emotionally manipulates the audience, telling outright lies about what Ben is doing. Some of Domingo’s best stuff is when he breathlessly narrates the action. When Ben ends up in a car with someone who has been watching the show, she immediately says he’s a psychopath because the show has said he is.

The Hunters who follow Ben aren’t as corny awesome as the Stalkers were in the original movie (No “Here is Subzero, now plain zero!”). But they are vicious, with the main hunter being played mostly behind a mask by Lee Pace, so it’s a lot of body language and vocal inflection. When he takes off his mask for the finale, there is visible pain there as he lays out to Ben what the game really is. Ezra as the revolutionary makes propaganda videos that have a very lo-fi ‘90s VHS feel. Reteaming with Wright again after Scott Pilgrim, Cera’s Elton takes the movie over for a stretch as Elton actually invites soldiers to their hiding spot so he can unleash insane firepower on them. It’s very chaotic, messy and awesome.

The Running Man has a bit too many endings and fake outs, but it moves at such a zippy pace it gets a pass. And as funny as it is, it never reaches the deranged corniness of the original. But there’s a lot of inventive bits, like when Ben is playing keep away with a live grenade that results in a big boom. The little teases of the other violent network TV shows are also really nuts, like the guy running on a treadmill and yelling out trivia. This Running Man is a visceral dose of flashy dystopian reality TV and all the loud bloodshed that comes with it.