Edgar Wright’s new take on The Running Man has a rather sluggish, bitty beginning, but it does manage to cleanly establish one thing from the very start – its hero, Ben Richards (Glen Powell), is a spectacularly angry man. It’s a rage he has every right to – living in a housing block called Slumside in a rotten city within a dystopian America, blacklisted from employment for being a loyal union member and with a sick toddler whose medication he can’t afford – and one that fuels The Running Man even as the actual plotting stumbles. Not quite a full return to form for Wright after the truly duff Last Night In Soho, it is, at its best, a good reminder of just how much his films can be.
Again adapting Stephen King’s novel, but sticking to its source material much more faithfully than the ‘80s Arnie version, The Running Man is, much like the adaptation of The Long Walk from a couple of months ago, all about entertaining a broken nation through savagery. The titular gameshow, aired by the almighty ‘Network’ that controls every aspect of this grim future, offers a billion dollars to those desperate enough to compete in it, tasking them with surviving for 30 days while being hunted by lethal, well-armed goons all while encouraging civilians to turn the runners in themselves for their own financial gain.
It’s not a challenge that Richards wants to take on, but his fury and desperation thrill Network exec Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) so much that he talks him into entering. Suddenly hunted by the whole country, Richards grabs himself some cash, disguises, and emergency weaponry and swiftly becomes a ratings favourite as he swears at cameras and steadfastly refuses to die. King’s satire still feels prescient without too many changes from Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall, especially in the way that the Network deepfakes Richards saying ever more inflammatory things in his daily to-camera addresses, a concept lifted wholesale from the book with a bit of extra 21st Century technological gloss.
In fact, Wright’s touch here is a light one to the point that it doesn’t always feel like you’re watching one of his movies. While his ultra-kinetic sensibilities do reappear to fuel easily the film’s two best set-pieces – a Home Alone-style boobie-trapped house siege featuring Michael Cera as a surprisingly deadly revolutionary and a gunfight on a crashing plane, both just fantastically fun and exciting – The Running Man is often a little impersonal.
Part of this is down to how vignette-y the story is by nature, Richards always on the move, always having to leave characters behind and get situated in a new city. The result is a supporting cast that, aside from Cera and Colman Domingo as the sadistic showboat announcer on the show, makes very few meaningful impressions and can be downright dull at worst. Powell really does pick up the slack in the lead though, his unspoken campaign to be ‘the new Tom Cruise’ continuing at pace. Snarling at his defeats, howling at his successes, and really convincing in the action scenes, he proves again that he’s a real deal movie star.
Again like The Long Walk, The Running Man twists away from the original’s ending and (again again, like The Long Walk) I don’t think it’s for the better, softening the blow in a frustrating way. But this is still solid, old-school, big-screen fun from a filmmaker who, when he wants to, can really blow you away with an action sequence. The Running Man doesn’t let Wright cut loose quite enough, but when he’s able to, he can still thrill. Let’s hope that in his next one, though, he stops being afraid to be funny – cinema is sorely missing the man who could make a masterpiece like Hot Fuzz.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 