November 18, 2025
"The Running Man" is a televised reality game show on the FreeVee network run by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and hosted by Bobby Thompson (Colman Domingo). "Runners" stand to win $1 billion if they are able to survive for 30 days while masked executioner Evan McCone (Lee Pace) and his band of "Hunters" try to hunt them down and kill them. Despite the obvious danger of losing their lives, extreme poverty had forced citizens to join for money.
Ben Richards (Glen Powell) was jobless. He had been blacklisted on his job for insubordination. His baby daughter Cathy is sick with a high fever, so for money, his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) had to go back to her job as a waitress in a nightclub. Desperate, Ben decided to audition to join one of the game shows on FreeVee to earn cash. Because of his physical fitness, skills and hot temper, he was selected to join "The Running Man."
The story of "The Running Man" was adapted from a 1982 novel by Stephen King (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman). It is interesting to note that the events in the book were set in the year 2025, when the economy of the US had collapsed into a dystopian society. The back story of Ben, character names and game mechanics in the book were closely-followed in this new film co-written and directed by Edgar Wright.
In 1987, a looser, campier film adaptation was directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a convicted cop. There, it was 2017. Running Man was a TV game show where criminals joined to win back their freedom. There was a live studio audience, and the game arena was limited in a limited area in Los Angeles (not the whole USA). "Family Feud" host Richard Dawson was cast as host Damon (not Dan) Killian.
The abilities of Glen Powell's Ben Richards was practically super-human. He was also incredibly lucky all the time. It was fun and frenetic, but we never really felt that he was in any danger of losing at all. By the second half, the film already felt like it was going on a bit too long, and by the final moments, it just got too over-the-top dark. While we do see director Edgar Wright's dynamic visual style, this did not match the excellence of his "Baby Driver" (2017). 6/10
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