| Worth seeing: | as a high octane thriller whose futuristic edge and satirical message have been diluted by modern-day reality |
| Director: | Edgar Wright |
| Featuring: | Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Angelo Gray, Colman Domingo, Daniel Ezra, Emilia Jones, Jayme Lawson, Katy O'Brian, Lee Pace, Martin Herlihy, Michael Cera, Sandra Dickinson, William H Macy |
| Length: | 133 minutes |
| Certificate: | 15 |
| Country: | US |
| Released: | 12th November 2025 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
In a dystopian future America, Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is down on his luck. Recently fired from his blue-collar job for leading a call from workers for better safety conditions, he’s left unable to afford to support his wife and their sick, young daughter.
His only hope is to appear on a TV gameshow – not The Running Man, in which a gang of heavily armed hunters seek and kill three contestants – but any of the others. Just his luck, he’s so angry when he goes to the audition that they pick him for The Running Man.
All he has to do is to stay alive for 30 days, with bonuses for killing any of the hunters sent to get him – but members of the public are also rewarded for alerting the network to his whereabouts.
The network boss Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) promises Ben that his family will be well looked after while he’s on the show and sees him and his two fellow contestants off with a smile.
As the other contestants get themselves knocked off quickly, all the network’s resources come down on Ben – but he’s determined to win the game, to seek the best future for his family.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
The latest adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name is far more faithful to the source material than the 1980s version, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger took centre stage.
In a cute nod to the earlier film – and with a dash of real political satire – the “new dollars” used in this world feature the portrait of President Schwarzenegger. There is also reference to a major street, named after President Obama.
Earlier iterations of this story – the book and the film – came long before the global dominance of reality TV and social media, so the idea of the whole world watching on and tipping off the authorities loses some of its power – it’s not a dystopian future after all, it’s our every day life.
There is a peculiarly retro element, where contestants are obliged to provide a 10 minute video of themselves every day, on a video cassette – but Ben never seems to have the huge case carrying a month’s worth of tapes with him – until he actually needs it. And the idea that the tapes can help the hunters trace him seems so obvious, it seems bizarre that it doesn’t even occur to anyone until we meet Michael Cera’s gang of underground conspiracy theorists, about halfway through the film.
Another incoherent element comes in the form of Ben’s fellow contestants; the network supposedly has a month of airtime to fill, yet it wilfully chooses two contestants it knows will burn themselves out within the first few days and fully expects the third to be done just a few days later; how does it intend to fill the last two weeks of airtime?
At its heart, The Running Man is a fight-for-survival, a chase-to-the-death, with an undercurrent of political authoritarianism – with half of the public following the leaders like sheep while the others resist from the shadows. As its name suggests, it’s about a man who does a lot of running – using his ingenuity and resourcefulness and whatever help he can accept without raising too much attention.
It makes you wonder how such a talented and resourceful character has been living in the gutter for so long and not been spotted and pulled out of obscurity by the all-seeing state – or indeed by the resistance leaders trying to challenge authority.
Glen Powell does his best with the material available to him, but it’s difficult to have too much sympathy for someone who has chosen to put himself through this ordeal. Josh Brolin is suitably smarmy but the talents of William H Macy and Michael Cera are disappointingly underused in small supporting parts.
It’s fine for what it is, a somewhat simplistic fight-for-survival thriller, but misses many opportunities to say something interesting about the world in which it’s set; a world that doesn’t seem as far away from reality as it would have done in the 1980s – and as the plot unfolds, it’s alternately unremarkable and incoherent.