FILM
The Running Man ★★★½
(MA) 133 minutes
Nowadays, there’s something almost aspirational about an old-fashioned dystopia, the kind where official messages are always written in the same blocky all-caps font, and power lies in the hands of a single sinister corporation, with a raggedy resistance on the sidelines awaiting their moment.
Glen Powell plays Ben Richards in the new version of The Running ManCredit: AP
In such a world, it’s possible for the entire population to be glued to one TV show – something crucial to the plot of Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, adapted by Wright and his co-writer Michael Bacall from the Stephen King novel of the same title, first published under a pen name in 1982 (a few years after King’s conceptually similar The Long Walk, also brought to the screen this year).
The book was previously filmed in 1987, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead, although this version wasn’t especially faithful to the source material or, by common consent, Arnie’s finest hour. Here man-of-the-moment Glen Powell takes over as underdog hero Ben Richards, a construction worker fired from one job after another for righteous insubordination.
Desperate for funds to help his sick child, he volunteers for America’s No. 1 game show The Running Man, a life-or-death competition that involves racing across the country trying to stay out of sight, while the public get prizes for helping the goons on his trail hunt him down.
Should Ben last 30 days, he and his loved ones will be set for life. The catch is that thus far no contestant has survived that long – but perhaps Ben has what it takes to be the first, or at least to wreak revenge on the show’s smarmy host (Colman Domingo) and Machiavellian creator (Josh Brolin, in the role that would once have belonged to Dennis Hopper).
It all gets a bit silly when Michael Cera shows up halfway through. Credit: AP
Moral considerations aside, it’s easy to see why this show would be a hit: the chase sequences are gripping and ingeniously staged (in the visibly storyboarded manner that is Wright’s trademark, each shot resembles a panel in a comic book). This is a film about alleys, corridors, stairwells, lift shafts, sewers and rooftops, where Ben is constantly tested not just on his speed and stamina but his ability to improvise escape routes.
It isn’t an outright spoof like Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but it’s still knowingly silly, especially when Michael Cera – Scott Pilgrim himself – shows up halfway through as one of the aforesaid raggedy revolutionaries, equally comfortable with setting deadly booby traps and printing off zines.
