If you’ve only seen the 1987 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Running Man and never read the 1982 novel (originally published under King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman, but written in 1973), you may not realize just how angry and critical of society the story actually is. Not unlike another recently adapted Bachman book, The Long Walk, King predicted the rise in popularity of reality television, taken to the extreme in his stories where audiences would watch contestants killed on a live feed.
In fact, the original Running Man book was set in “near future” date of 2025. So when this latest, and largely faithful, adaptation by director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver) and Michael Bacall really get moving, we find out just how pissed off lead character Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is at the entire mechanism that runs The Running Man gameshow and the government.
In essence, the show (one of the many that the network airs involving very dangerous games, but the only one that seems to involve deliberate murder) features three contestants (known as Runners) per episode who must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins (known as Hunters). If the contestant survives a certain amount of time before the 30 days is up, their family gets much-needed cash prizes; if they kill one of the Hunters chasing them, they get money as well. No one has ever won this contest, which also involves the general republic getting rewards for calling in credible tips about where a Runner might be. So basically, the whole world is against you except for small pockets of people who are inherently against these games and attempt to help the Runners even at large risk to themselves.
As part of the broadcast, the Runners are painted as the lowest forms of life imaginable, when in fact, the only reason Ben agrees to volunteer for The Running Man is to get his two-year-old daughter the treatment she needs to survive an illness. His wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) isn’t happy with the decision, but the money would come at exactly the right time. Along Ben’s journey we meet some equally colorful characters, including the show’s conniving producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin); its flashy host, Bobby T (Colman Domingo); and the other two contestants, Jansky (Martin Herlihy) and Laughlin (the great Katy O’Brian).
Helping out Ben along the way are sketchy characters played by William H. Macy and Michael Cera, who seems to have been planning his whole life for Hunters to dare to enter his home. The booby traps are exceptional. Late in the film, Ben “kidnaps” real estate agent Amelia (Emilia Jones), and ends up in a private plane with both the lead Hunter (Lee Pace) and Killian (via video conference call), offering him the deal of a lifetime to continue on with his own show, since he’s become one of the most popular Runners in the show’s history.
As the game goes on, we learn a great deal about Ben that not only puts us more on his side but makes his anger fully righteous and well-earned. He has been fired from jobs for doing the right thing, even if it was against company policy; and he wants to protect his family even as the world around him seems eager to push him down. He has a defiance and grit that the common person in this society can relate to, and that makes him wildly popular. What Ben wants in the end is for the audience to fully support him and his mission to tear this entire game-show system down. The nation has become addicted to death, and Ben wants to snap them of the habit by (honorably) exploiting his working-class roots and putting a mirror to the viewership of this morally challenged show.
Powell keeps showing us new sides to his talents as an actor, and although it will be tough to top his work in the 2023 Richard Linklater-directed Hit Man, what he accomplishes in The Running Man is both darkly funny and full of worthy outrage. Plus, there’s a hysterical scene in which he’s attempting to avoid Hunters by hanging from the side of a building in nothing but a loosely held towel, so do with that what you will. At this point, it should go without saying that Edgar Wright knows his way around an action scene, but we shouldn’t forget that he’s also extremely skilled at finding new and interesting ways to kill people in his movies, and The Running Man provides us with many prime examples of this (refer to my previous comments about the section of the film with Michael Cera). It’s not my favorite Edgar Wright film, but it might be right up there with Baby Driver at its most purely entertaining with a smattering of social commentary for those of us who read Stephen King for his politics.
The film is now in theaters.
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