Stephen King’s 1982 novel gets a more faithful second cinematic adaptation with Edgar Wright’s The Running Man. Fans of the cult-classic 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film will be left scratching their heads as Wright nails the book’s economic and authoritarian themes, but stumbles in stale action sequences that lose intensity in a long and bewildering third act. What begins as a thoughtful, riveting and darkly comic action thriller limps to a drawn-out climax as the film’s excessive length becomes problematic.
Wright’s film stars Glen Powell as a desperate father in a dystopian near-future America who enters a deadly reality TV show competition to save his sick infant daughter. The Running Man opens with the stark image of Ben Richards (Powell) cradling his coughing toddler as he begs for his job back. After getting fired and blacklisted from employment for trying to help his coworkers, Ben can barely contain his anger as a cruel supervisor (David Zayas) couldn’t care less. That’s what he gets for not following corporate rules and minding his own business. Ben trudges back to his ramshackle apartment in the slums and continues to stew as his baby girl cries in discomfort. Sheila (Jayme Lawson), his wife, returns home from her degrading job with knockoff street meds. She can’t stay because taking an extra shift means food on the table.
Ben watches FreeVee game shows on the Network, the media arm of a national conglomerate that owns every part of society. Each competition features varying degrees of lethality, with the downtrodden poor taking dangerous risks for a chance at winning money. The Running Man, by far the most popular program, has a simple premise: Survive 30 days on the run and win a staggering one billion dollars. The catch? Competitors are chased by a group of merciless Hunters and their bloodthirsty masked leader, McCone (Lee Pace), who get tipped off to your location from an incentivized public. The following day, in the Network’s tower, producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) takes a keen interest in an angry contestant who’s testing off the charts.
Let’s start with what works. The Running Man offers a visceral depiction of poverty and oppression. Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver) stokes Ben’s fury with his lack of choices in a world where the rich control everything. Proper sustenance, shelter and medicine are luxuries meant for those with deep pockets. Ben must go through security checkpoints to reach the Network’s studio in a glimmering district of prosperity, where the wealthy never have to interact with the lower classes. Scenes of the old and decrepit vomiting in line for a chance to be on the show illustrate widespread despair. A cruel death is worth the fleeting hope for a better life.
The Running Man’s production design reinforces the tyranny with harsh realism. Streets patrolled by helmeted soldiers, cameras recording every move and drones hovering above aren’t science fiction – Wright wants the audience to connect the film with what’s happening now. Government raids, extrajudicial killings, widespread unemployment and lack of healthcare access widens class disparity until the gulf between the haves and have-nots becomes a chasm. Ben isn’t an outlier but a product of a logical conclusion to unfair policies, and Wright delivers this overt lesson with a cudgel. There’s no question where his politics lie, and he’s not afraid to make his opinions known.
The film’s doom-and-gloom scenario is mitigated with gallows humor. Colman Domingo nearly steals the show as Bobby T, The Running Man‘s hilariously flamboyant host who comically spouts Network propaganda with scantily clad background dancers in tow. Bobby’s a crucial part of a system that labels the contestants as pathetic criminals who rightfully deserve what’s coming. The live studio audience cheers as the Hunters and their acolytes find gruesome ways to finish targets. But Ben smartly turns the tables on message manipulation once he realizes the Network and Killian control the truth.
The Running Man’s strong start goes off the rails as Ben gains supporters in his efforts to hide. He wears a bracelet that displays his remaining time in the game, which is obviously an easy tracking device, so the massive Network effort to find Ben is purely theatrics. He’s constantly under attack from the Hunters, with McCone and camera drones on him like white on rice at every turn. But the rub is that a quick death doesn’t equal the big ratings that Killian desires. Ben’s a TV star that needs as much publicity as possible. Every day that he draws breath just means more eyeballs for the Network. This makes sense, so you’d think each successive action scene would be more spectacular and interesting. They’re not, which is why the film’s precipitous spiral is so damn disappointing.
The Running Man clocks in at 133 minutes. The last hour is so achingly dull, it’s almost torture to sit through. The clever beginning and social commentary evaporates into a blasé series of chases with the same outcome, and the action becomes contrived until the introduction of a key third-act character, which then leads to a predictable and poorly executed finale. It also doesn’t help that Brolin’s slimy Killian vanishes for 90% of the film. The Running Man needs a shorter edit with slicker action choreography. Instead, viewers are left yawning and shrugging as the credits roll. That’s a total bummer, and a waste of a decent performance from Powell.
The Running Man will be released theatrically on November 14 from Paramount Pictures.