There is fury in Edgar Wright's terrifyingly bizarre work. running Man. Or at least that's how it should be. Its protagonist: Ben Richards (Glen Powell), an unemployed worker in a future American surveillance state where reality TV and “New Dollars” are the coin of the world.
Because Ben can't rest. Fired for his daring attempt to save his co-workers from a work accident, Ben is chronically unemployed—bad news for his overworked wife (Jaime Lawson) and sickly young daughter in serious need of medication.
There's just one problem: Ben, often called the most evil man in the world, is in serious need of money. So, after leaving his rat neighborhood of the Slums, he finds himself in the rich part of Co-op City, where the pseudo-government broadcasting company Freevee is based.
We tell almost every citizen on television that we are chillingly informed, watch you, Freevee is something like Spike TV being elected president. Running a series of game shows that are questionably ethical at best, Freevee head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) lives like a king in this retrofuturistic hellscape.
His favorite production brings them a lot of income; namesake running Man a show he thought Ben would be perfect for. A reality show whose rules are easily broken even by the most casual viewer.
WATCH | Trailer for The Running Man:
As a member, simply lose your ID and other identifying markers that allow you to do everything from book a hotel room to buy a bus ticket. Then try to evade and survive the “hunters” in hot pursuit for thirty days, armed with sniper rifles, shotguns, switchblades – and serious bloodlust.
Oh yeah, and try not to be accepted by society at large as desperate to see you punished for your perceived failures as a member of society. For them, this would be much more interesting than seeing the winner's family receive a $1 billion reward if he somehow manages to survive.
High concept action
As an installation, it is immediately identifiable; a high-concept, TV-obsessed dystopia that hits every absurdly named and ridiculously costumed box of satirical sci-fi.
And the best thing is the 1987 update of Arnold Schwarzenegger. running Man the advantage is his pessimism and absurd creativity; at times light-hearted and at other times sharply ironic.
Squint and you might be able to imagine that Colman Domingo's performance as raging voyeur TV host Bobby T is an homage to Chris Tucker's Ruby Rod in Fifth element.
(Ross Ferguson/Paramount Pictures)
But this is despite poor storytelling technique and dissimilar, if not vaguely vague, characters. It is both a simplistic and outdated destruction of the surveillance state and a cynical (though not inaccurate) shot across the bow of modern America.
This is a film with a plot so scattered and convoluted that Ben's friends and family – ostensibly the driving force behind all his actions – disappear into the background with a rapidity and regularity that suggests they never mattered in the first place.
This is a film that doesn't even bother introducing a single main character until almost the last 15 minutes, but without which the film wouldn't be able to make its almost painfully superficial point. The film that like the recent Tron revivalis dressed up in the garb of futuristic cultural commentary, but moves so completely away from its respective franchise's starting point that it no longer functions as a critique of anything at all.
Honestly, all of this is the basis of a really well made action. Wright, a consummate expert in overstimulation, clearly still has all the tricks of action choreography under his belt. Scott Pilgrim taught him to burn a hole in his pocket.
It's a short-lived joy to watch as Powell evades the ruthless hunters who pursue him through alleys, sewers and run-down apartment buildings. Combine that with a cameo from defenseman Michael Cera that competes with Rambo in unjustified violence, and this version running Man might just surpass the original as a fun action movie.
But it is told with virtually no real connection to a society that is much more connected to phone screens than television.
running Man tells us that we are locked in advertising hell, and its masters constantly lie, manipulate and exploit us. This may be true, but aside from the conceit that often harkens back to AI-altered video, Wright's argument is exceptionally tedious. And considering that the artificial intelligence component was taken directly from the original film (probably nothing more than an incidentally prophetic theme worth revisiting now), it's hard to think about it. running Man as something more than just a recorded version 1984.
For example: a Kardashian-style reality show called Americans playing corny on everyone's TVs – a debacle against the supposedly stupid, self-medicating citizens of Co-op City who might have felt humiliated if it were 2010. It all plays into an exaggerated, oversimplified exposé of a world gone wrong, which is as groan-inducing as being 20 years too late.
Without a strong connection with modernity, any political moment running Man may have turned the clots into inertia. Instead, it acts as a studio-approved riot, a safe, satirical sci-fi allegory – mildly railing against common evil with such a lack of specificity that it becomes almost pointless to talk about.
Like Jason Statham's for-profit prison allegory Death RaceJustin Timberlake's “time is money” metaphor for capitalism. In timeor Matt Damon's border allegory Elysiumit vaguely points to social problems so enormous and general that there is little to say about their actual solution. All that's missing is Kendall Jenner to end racism. offer the policeman a Pepsi.
Contentful product placement
It's almost as if the bad writing itself isn't much; an ironic wink to the audience who are also caught up in the same heartless schadenfreude from which its protagonist is running.
But the way this criticism is phrased seems to do the opposite: there is no undermining of the blatantly stilted writing. There is no jarringly depressing ending that accurately reflects our situation or innovates the genre. Instead, there's the Che Guevara-worshipping Michael Cera, who ends his Go Get 'Em monologue with literal product placement for Monster Energy drinks.
There are two hours of passable action and a disappointingly unearned kumbaya ending that seriously undermines the whole “separate population” idea the film has been building up to this point. It's a sad portrayal of America, designed to destroy the very foundations of the industry that support a major $100 million studio production.
This is also convincing proof that a house cannot be burned down from the inside. You can't start a revolution from inside a war room. And you can't make Glen Powell an ordinary hero of the people when these people themselves are the object of your ridicule.
In short, we already have Cleaning at home, Edgar Wright. No need to dress him up like that Battle Royale.
