Written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King's 1982 novel is set in a dystopian 2025 where "The Network" is not just in charge of TV, but essentially run the United States and have turned the country into an authoritarian surveillance state where a small percentage of people are uber-wealthy, and everyone else struggles to afford even basic medicine. The film does away with the year, since the idea of people living like that in 2025 is so ridiculous.
Enter Glenn Powell as family man Ben Richards. He may live in a hellscape but old Ben doesn't do himself any favours by losing his temper every time someone rubs him the wrong way. Whistleblowing on dangerous work practices has landed him on the work blacklist, so when his infant daughter gets sick he goes against the wishes of his wife and enlists in deadly game show The Running Man. He must survive thirty days while a team of hunters, aided by the general public, try to punch his ticket. Nobody has ever survived, but if he wins, he gets a billion new dollars.
Between this and The Long Walk, released earlier this year, it seems '70s King really had a handle on where American society was heading. Or perhaps he just skewered things that were already happening and nothing really changes. Either way, political satire takes as much centre stage as the action here, with an all powerful state determined to keep the little man in his place and a mobilisation of the people the only hope for fighting back. The movie is keen to harness the author's foresight and probably remains a little too faithful to the source material. Director Edgar Wright, was involved in the script, although a double credit for Michael Bacall suggests the "Jump Street" scribe did the majority of the writing and an insistence on including so much from the book gives the story a slightly stilted pace. Something which is particularly apparent in an overlong set-up and muddled ending. It runs 133 minutes and, while it doesn't drag, a leaner cut might have worked better.
Compared to its '87 counterpart, this is a less flamboyant film. The world is a dour near future and the hunters are basically just military guys. A far cry from the primary coloured jumpsuits and OTT gimmick using killers of Arnie's day. We still get plenty of larger than life characters, from Josh Brolin's wall-toothed executive scumbag to Michael Cera's passionate revolutionary, and Colman Domingo's preening peacock is as charismatic as game show hosts come. It's just that everything is visually toned down.
The same could be said of Wright's direction. Usually one of cinema's most distinct stylists, his typical flourishes are pared way back. Maybe this is down to time issues (the film was shot, edited and released within a year), maybe it's due to the directors reverence for the source material (Wright has said in interviews he has wanted to adapt the book since he was a teenager), or maybe he just wanted to show he can do a traditional action movie. And he certainly can. With most of his movies being genre mash-ups it's easy to overlook how fantastically directed the action sequences in something like "Hot Fuzz" are. The set pieces here are butter smooth and mix inventiveness with solid physical beats. The standout is probably a cartoonishly violent, Home Alone-like sequence where Michael Cera lures a bunch of agents into his house of death.
Powell carries the action well and has the movie star quality to anchor the story, even if the character of Ben Richards is a little confused. He is introduced as a ball of rage, but keeps his temper in the face of extreme stress. He hates the system because he knows it's rigged, but seems constantly surprised to find out it's rigged. He is jobless in a society where even the basics are barely affordable, but he (as a scene with an obscenely low slung towel will attest) maintains the physique of a marble statue. Still, he is the man the plot, or camera, needs him to be at any given moment and that isn't the worst thing for an action film.
The Running Man lacks the brash style of either its earlier incarnation or its director's other work, it's also a little too long and has an ending that doesn't really work. When it's in top gear though, it delivers slick action built around a leading man with charisma to spare.
7 dead goons out of 10.
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