Long before the slick, family friendly, CGI driven action blockbusters of today the ‘action movie’ was a rather different beast – sure, there were clearly drawn heroes and villains, ridiculous costumes and action that could best be described as ‘comic book-y’, but with that came a fair does of bloody violence and a more, if not grown up, then maybe ‘adult’ outlook – and in the midst of that came Paul Michael Glaser’s (yes, Starsky himself) take on ‘Richard Bachman’s (aka Stephen King) The Running Man.
Starring arguably the king of this particular style, ‘The Austrian Oak’ Arnold Schwarzenegger, in arguably his prime, as disgraced cop Ben Richards who was framed for a massacre he tried to stop in the far flung future of 2017, we meet him as he escapes from a prison colony before being unceremoniously drafted as a contestant in the titular TV game show.
Stylistically it’s hard to argue that it’s a bit all over place being at once a dystopian future ruled over by a mysterious ‘Cadre’ with soldiers in ridiculous and ineffective armour happy to shoot civilians, while also one of the most 1980s looking and feeling things ever committed to celluloid
Along with that it switches from comedic to ultraviolent in the blink of a eye and it’s world is so lightly drawn that it really doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny (Blade Runner this isn’t, despite the similar setting).
Regardless of this though it moves at such a clip as to not really give you time to think about such concerns, while Schwarzenegger is such a charismatic force of nature (even in a ludicrous Lycra jumpsuit) that whenever he is on screen we are just swept along.
Elsewhere the cast is a veritable ‘who’s that’ of talent with secondary roles, cameos and even less for a bewildering array of vaguely familiar faces from Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura to Mick Fleetwood to Dweezil Zappa to Sven Thorsen and more.
The female lead in movies like this rarely gets much of a real look in but, as Amber Mendez, María Conchita Alonso is brilliantly effective, matching Arnold’s energy and, for the most part, coming off as not just being a screaming damsel in distress but having at least some of her own agency and a legitimate motivation beyond ‘falling for the hero’.
Of course without a good villain all would be lost and Richard Dawson’s Damon Killian is a fine example of the breed.
While physically not a match for Schwarzenegger he creates a brilliant and instantly recognisable sleazy gameshow host who becomes a kind of puppet master figure, and I can only suspect someone involved in the writing or making of the film had had a less than positive run in with a TV exec at some point to come up with Killian.
The middle section of the film does become a little episodic but is held together by a subplot about a resistance movement trying to bring down the government which ends up driving the final act that, if you go with it, brings The Running Man to a feel good climax that cuts to the credits before you’ve have time to ask too many questions.
What elevates it further beyond so much straight to video schlock as well is the (less than subtle) satirical element that is reminiscent of much of Paul Verhoeven’s work )particularly Robocop) and feels possibly even more relevant now than it must have then as, it not only deals with capitalism taken to an ultimate and horrific conclusion, but also the kind of deep fakes and AI image generation combined with the notion of fake news that seems to get more worrying in our world every week.
Feeling somehow like a hybrid of the aforementioned Blade Runner and John Carpenter’s They Live with a dose of Robocop thrown in for good measure – as unlikely and ridiculous as that sounds – The Running Man is a great romp and a fun way to spend 100 minutes or so with huge energy and an undercurrent of something more that takes it beyond being a straight to video b-movie.
Tommy Girard 