Directed by Edgar Wright — Screenplay by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright.
The British writer-director Edgar Wright has a fairly significant fanbase, and I think of myself as part of that fanbase. Ever since he burst onto the scene with his second feature, Shaun of the Dead, the first film in his Cornetto trilogy, Wright has been widely praised for his distinctive brand of comedy and his distinctive visual inventiveness that has seen his film stand out for their comedically fast and/or precise editing or the way the films sometimes are paired extraordinarily well with music, with Baby Driver being his best example of that. His latest effort as a director is an adaptation of Stephen King’s sci-fi novel (written under a pseudonym), The Running Man, which was previously adapted into an Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi action vehicle (despite being a product of its time, it does have its moments, as well as a very good performance from Richard Dawson). It is a story that I can totally understand why it is being put on the big screen again, because that Schwarzenegger flick can be improved upon. Does Wright succeed with that challenge? Well, I’d say that he mostly does, but not by as much as I imagined he would. This is not as smooth a film as the ones Wright has become known for.
Edgar Wright’s The Running Man takes place in a near-future setting, where the United States has become a totalitarian dystopia. Here we follow one of the many people living in poverty, Ben Richards (played by Glen Powell), who has recently lost his job and been blacklisted, which now means that he will be unable to pay for the medicine that his infant daughter needs to survive. So, in an effort to earn the money that can save his daughter’s life, he signs up to compete in one of the many violent game shows that the so-called Network airs on TV, on which they claim that you can win anywhere between hundreds to even a billion dollars. The Network selects Ben for their most popular program, the Running Man, which now means that day and night, he will be hunted by five elite hunters, but also the viewers of the show, and if he is caught, he will be killed. However, the longer he survives, the more money he will earn for his family, and should he go the full thirty days without dying, then he’d win a billion dollars. The film then showcases Ben Richards’ attempt to survive this violent game show.
Appropriately, this is a film that is filled to the brim with the kind of commentary, both explicit and implicit, that you’d expect from a 1984-esque narrative where a ‘Network’ controls and watches over everyone. At a moment in time like the one we are living in, I think it is very good to have a major action film speak to this type of warning against a wide variety of things that your government can do to you. I also think the film is more violent than I expected it to be. And, for what it’s worth, there are moments with great action that stand out, including both an extended Michael Cera-led sequence and a sequence where Powell’s Richards is trying to escape a hostel (which has featured heavily in the marketing). That said, the comedy is hit or miss, with, again, the Cera-portion of the film standing out as the most fun part. I also got a lot out of seeing Glen Powell, who I really like, get to have more Hit Man-esque dress-up hijinx. Powell, I think, is pretty good in this. Even though he looks more like a movie star than an angry everyman type, he’s a good choice for the kind of action hero that this film asks him to be. But, predictably, Colman Domingo runs away with this film. He is electric as the host of the titular game show.
But, for as much as I enjoyed it, there are a number of things that hold it back from being a huge improvement on the Schwarzenegger version. Despite it having a relatively fast pace and a somewhat episodic structure, The Running Man really feels its length of 133 minutes. Had they been able to cut it down to a speedy 110-115-minute version, I think it would’ve gone down a lot smoother, assuming that a tighter version would have more of a kind of musicality and sharp editing that Wright has become known for. Because the film only really has a small handful of scenes that feel like Wright-esque moments. It also doesn’t help that it gets off to a confusing start with its clunky opening scenes, or that the film eventually writes itself into a corner that leads to an underwhelming third act (and an ending that somewhat feels like a cheat). Through no fault of hers, those late-stage issues start right when Emilia Jones appears on-screen, and the film doesn’t ever really recover from getting stuck in the mud right around there.
At the end of the day, I did like Edgar Wright’s The Running Man a fair bit, but it has to be said that it is bookended by scenes that don’t really work as well as they ought to, and that, for long stretches, it is lacking the audiovisual fingerprint that Wright tends to leave on his films. So, it doesn’t quite reach its potential, despite being filled with a lot of elements that I enjoyed, including most of what Powell and Cera turned in.
6.9 out of 10
– Review written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 