Back when Stephen King wrote The Running Man, it might have seemed like a nice short novel about a dystopia world. Published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, it was the second novel he had published under the name set in a Fascist cruel world. Yet the bleakness of 1970s paranoia gave us numerous sci-fi movies with dark and depressing tones, so it seemed like a carry over from that decade.
It’s obviously another version of Richard Cornell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” where humans are hunted by other humans. King was a huge fan of Lord of the Flies and you can see some of the bleakness in the 1982 novel. The first draft was written when King was a young man and like most writers in their 20s, they’re more obsessed with sad, bleak stories that end a lot worse. King has said Bachman was the darkness that helped him turn out some works that don’t fit his normal style. And of course, he was also dealing with substance abuse addiction to alcohol and cocaine. Aside from the title, some characters’ names and the premise of people being hunted on TV, the 1987 film adaptation took things down a different path.
It was more a criticism of TV and Paul Michael Glaser filmed it like a TV movie with a dark comedic tone. Filmed in 1985, it wasn’t released until 1987 and its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, doesn’t think too highly of it. Still, it was saved by its own comedic style and the performance by Richard Dawson as the movie’s villain.
Since then, there have been numerous bleak dystopia movies that all look the same. We have the Hunger Games, Divergent and Maze Runner movies as well as Battle Royale and Squid Games. Ergo, while director Edgar Wright keeps the latest version more faithful to the work in hopes to appeal to fans of the novel, we’ve been down this road before several times everything just feels tired.
Glen Powell steps into the role of Ben Richards this time as a man who has lost his job because he’s been blacklisted but it’s never explained. He has a wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), who is doing what she can to make money but their baby daughter, Cathy, is sick. So in desperation, Richards goes and tries out as a contestant for one of the reality game shows but finds himself on The Running Man.
However, he doesn’t want to be on this show obviously because it’s the most dangerous. Not only are contestants chased by hunters, but they can be killed by regular citizens as well. They also must submit daily videos that they send in drop boxes which obviously inform the show runners and hunters where they are. If people don’t have a murderous instinct, they can still turn the contestants in.
So, it’s basically a chase movie as Ben runs around New England trying to stay alive. Every day alive results in more money. Powell has the action star looks but he runs into the same problem his Expendables 3 co-star Schwarzenegger ran into. Ben Richards isn’t really a well-rounded character. He’s basically supposed to represent the everyman fed up with the authoritarian government. That’s what makes Richards such a good action character because as Steven Martin said in Bowfinger, he runs toward the camera, he runs away from the camera.
The supporting cast do what they can with the material. I actually liked Michael Cera as Elton Parrakis, a rebel who lives near Derry, Maine and helps Richards. And Colman Domingo is great as Bobby “Bobby T” Thompson, the host of the show.
However, Josh Brolin has done the evil role of Dan Killian, the showrunner, so many times it’s like Thanos as a TV producer. The same for Lee Pace as the main Hunter Evan McCone, who spends most of his screentime with a mask covering his face. You can see the similarities between McCone and ICE agents. I know it wasn’t just happenstance as production began the same week of the 2024 Presidential election.
But a lot of times with adaptations is what works on the written page doesn’t exactly work on the screen. In the second half of the movie, Richards kidnaps a young woman, Amelia Williams (Emilia Jones), to help him. Yet, it never feels right as the tone changes. I guess it’s because Amelia seems to be one of the well-to-do people who lives under the lies of the government and network and she’s needed to see the powers that be are willing to have her die as well. The character comes so late in the movie and then she has such an importance to the climax, it never does work.
And that might be why the movie wasn’t the big success people were hoping for. It is enjoyable to watch but you won’t be eager to watch it again as a rerun.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 