"The Running Man" is a dystopia with a high dose of octane

by Linda Holmes

One tricky thing about writing dystopian fiction with staying power is that the future eventually catches up with you. Stephen King's 1982 novel The Running Man takes place in 2025. In his vision of, well, now, there is widespread poverty, rule by giant corporations, and exploitative entertainment that takes advantage of people who are suffering and tries to force ordinary people to despise each other. There is environmental destruction, mass surveillance and even the resurgence of polio. Just imagine.

The story follows a man named Ben Richards, who tries to provide for his family and his sick kid by going on a game show also called The Running Man. On the show, he has to survive on the streets for 30 days while professional assassins pursue him. If he makes it, he wins a billion dollars. But, of course, nobody has ever survived. In 1987, a loose film adaptation starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cop falsely accused of murder and forced into the race as punishment. It turned the story into a campy, flashy action picture where Richards fought cartoonish villains and had to survive a three-hour arena battle rather than a 30-day dash through the real world.

The new adaptation, directed by Edgar Wright, returns to the grimmer original story. Richards (played by Glen Powell) auditions for the game show run by the megacorporation known as The Network because his daughter has the flu, and Richards and his wife can't afford a doctor for her without a big prize. Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), the executive who oversees the game show empire, thinks Ben's anger and physical skill make him a perfect fit for The Running Man. And so Richards takes off, trying to stay ahead of the Hunters, the show's regulars who pursue and kill contestants. The chief Hunter is a celebrity named McCone (Lee Pace), who, despite being hailed as a hero by the Network and cheered by the show's bloodthirsty audience, wears a mask over his head to conceal his identity, which seems like good evidence of how thin, he knows, the line can be between being cheered and, should the wind shift, being loathed.

The strongest parts of the movie are the parts when the running man, you know, runs. Wright, who directed Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz as well as Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, has a good feel for offbeat action, including, here, a great confrontation inside a cheap hotel (in the book it's a YMCA) and a car chase cleverly filmed mostly from Richards' perspective inside the trunk, so that the audience feels the chaos and hears the noise in a way that feels fresher than just another medley of screeching tires and fishtailing back ends.

Powell plays very well with the supporting cast, particularly Michael Cera (who goes back with Wright at least as far as Scott Pilgrim). Cera plays an ally who despises both the larger system and the local police. Also making a nice showing is Daniel Ezra, who ends up being invested in The Running Man game show in a clever update for the internet age. King didn't include the online universe in 1982, of course, but I think he certainly would have if he'd known, so it's a good addition.

The biggest problem with this adaptation is that if you read the book, you probably know there are a couple of things about the ending that a major studio movie released in 2025 is unlikely to replicate. There are visuals that aren't going to happen on-screen given real-life historical events that have intervened since the publication of the novel, and there are things Stephen King will do as a storyteller that Paramount Pictures will not do as a studio. So there were always going to be some changes.

Wright does a good job of navigating that as well as he can and staying much, much closer to the original than the silly Schwarzenegger version. Inevitably, though, when there's a different feel to the ending of this movie, that gives a similarly different feel to the whole story. Some of King's sharper-elbowed commentary about what it might take to escape this kind of oppressive society is blunted a bit. Ultimately, the film has to stand on its own, and it takes opportunities to play up the action that are harder in print. But it's a less effective critique of its world than the book was.

With all that said, as an action movie that hits the gas, gets the running man running, and doesn't let up, it works quite well, and it's a lot of fun. Colman Domingo, who has played a lot of very noble characters in the last few years, sinks his teeth deliciously into the role of the flashy host who hypes up the mobs.

They bring the whole thing in at a little over two hours, provided you don't hang around to watch all the credits, and that's a good thing in a world of action bloat. Mileage may vary depending on how you react to Powell: His not-totally-trustworthy slickness fit perfectly into the worlds of Hit Man and Twisters, and it's a slightly different fit for this. He's not a Schwarzenegger type, despite having a genuinely massive upper body here (which gets a mention only because they make sure you get many chances to admire it). He's always got a bit of a wink to him, and some of his best work in this film are the moments when there's some comedy working alongside the action.

The final act doesn't feel as sharply focused as the rest (which is true of the book, also), but if you like your dystopias with a dose of high octane, you'll probably have a very good time.