THE RUNNING MAN (2025)

Edgar Wright's THE RUNNING MAN is confirmation that I really don't like his films as whole. In pieces they are fine, but as complete stories I find them messy and broken. I say that  because about 45 minutes into the film my brother leaned over and asked what whas wrong and I said "I f-ing despise this film...but I want to see how it plays out".  However by the time the film ended I begrudgingly liked it since it finally decided to pick a tone and go with that.

Based on the Stephen King novel, the film is set in a dystopian world where the rich lord over the poor and are controlled by giant companies that control what we see and can do (this is a not so subtle take down of Trump's America and the uber riuch ideal of how the world should be). Glenn Powell is a man with a wife and a sick daughter who is too good a guy to find work (he spoke up when the companies he worked for tried to kill their employees and he was fired). Hoping to get money on game show he tries out and is picked for The Running Man, where he has to stay alive for 30 days while everyone in America, and a group of five hunters in particular, try to kill him.

Not to put  too fine a point on it, his film is a mess. Uncertain if it's a serious film or a serious satire or a straight out comedy or something else, the film bounces from sequence to sequence and tone to tone with no clear plan for anything other than what Wright was feeling in that moment. What are we supposed to feel? I don't know because Wright is sending things up one second and then being deadly serious the next and then back again. It gives you whiplash. It's as if he didn't know what way to go or he cut together several scripts...

About the script- it's an f-ing mess. How bad is it? Screenwriter Michael Bacall is listed twice on screen as a writer in the same credit once by himself, and once with Edgar Wright. Why and how is that? Yea, I know Hollywood (Bacall wrote one script alone and other with Wright), but it looks kind of dumb. If the filmmakers weren't sure who wrote it and have to do weird gymnastics to say who is responsible, then one shouldn't be surprised that there is shit on screen. 

What exactly is wrong with the script? Pretty much everything. The world it creates makes no sense, even on its own terms. Seriously, think about the world and think about the social structure and it doesn't work. Everyone is supposed to be on the lookout for him but almost no one turns him in, and when it happens its almost out of left field, in the middle of a Podunk town in the middle of the night. To be fair, everything happens out of left field. There is no narrative thread. It's pieces of thread that give us scenes where stuff happens.  While the sequences are fine unto themselves, but they aren't connected to anyone or anything.  It's this big action sequence. Then this big action sequence.  Nothing happens for any reason other than it will result in a good action set piece. As a result, there is no suspense and no danger (Hey we are following Glen Powell, and the film runs over two hours he's not going to be in too much danger because he is the star and there is time to go before the credits roll). Every sequence, just like every character seems to be from another film. There is no real sense of all these people and events being from the same world.

The trouble of things not making sense goes into the set design. The buildings where people live look cool- but their functionality doesn't work. Powell's apartment is in a place that would never have been made into an apartment. It feels like the set designer found a space and decided to make the apartment there because it would look uncomfortable.  Other spaces are wildly oversized. The apartments, Michael Cerra's house are unbelievably huge on the inside, bigger than Dr Who's Tardis. The streets don't look like America.  I should not be noticing the world and the buildings to this degree. That might have not been noticed except that the narrative thread isn't there.

(SPOILER FOR THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)

As I said above the film shifts tones and it kills the film. It's made worse by the film not playing fair with us or the characters about what is real. We can't trust the TV people because they manipulate everyone and everything, which is great towards the end when Powell doesn't know what is real and what isn't, so he doesn't know if his family is alive or not. Its great because the film has some real bite... but then the shitty TV guys are revealed to be okay guys and that they really did pay them and put them some place safe. Yea it gives us a happy moment but it is completely wrong  for a film that wants to be cynical. The film should not get its cake and eat it too)

(END SPOILER)

Honestly I hate the end because it's crowd pleasing just to be crowd pleasing and it never rings true.

The one thing that I have no notes on is the cast which makes something out of their unwritten characters. Glen Powell is the film and is now officially a mega star because the film works on his charm. He is aided and abetted by Colman Domingo as the host of the Running Man, Michael Cera, who is funny in his extended cameo and the rest of the cast. If they weren't as good as they are the film would truly be lifeless.

While I never want to see this film, or any another Edgar Wright film again, THE RUNNING MAN is still an okay time waster. It has some great action sequences, and when it decides to be darkly cynical for about 20 minutes towards the end it kind of almost has an original thought of its own (seriusly evey idea it has comes from other better films including the original film version).  It's perfectly worth seeing when it comes to TV and you don't have to pay for it.