The Running Man (2025)
Screenplay by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright
Based on the novel by Stephen King
Produced by Simon Kinberg, Nira Park, Edgar Wright
Directed by Edgar Wright
R, 2hr 13m
This is not a remake of the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson.
And that’s a good thing. Very much like the Battlestar Galactica reboot, it’s good that the new version delivers a fresh take on the story, which in this case is based on the novel by Stephen King. Both of them have the same spine of a story -- guy gets suckered into participating in a deathmatch game show to improve his lot in life -- but the details are much, much different between the two.
Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a down-on-his-luck laborer who can’t get employment because he keeps calling out safety violations that endanger his co-workers. So now he can’t get a job because he’s not a team player and has been labeled “insubordinate” by the corporations and labor unions. And he’s got a two-year-old daughter who’s dying of the flu because they can’t afford the right kind of medicine — meaning real stuff from a real doctor as opposed to black-market off-label concoctions. So instead of letting his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) go back for a third shift at the club to flirt with the high-rollers, Ben decides to audition for one of the many high-stakes game shows that dominate the “freevee” network broadcasts. He’s even done a sort of spreadsheet to figure out the minimums he can win if he stays in the game past a certain amount of time. Of course, he promises his wife he’s absolutely not going to audition for the most dangerous game, The Running Man...
Naturally, he ends up on The Running Man.
Richards, along with Jenni Laughlin (Katy O’Brian) and Tim Jansky (Martin Herlihy) are the poor, unfortunate souls who get to “come on down” as contestants, only Ben’s the only one of the three who realizes this is not such a hot ticket as everyone seems to think. The rules: survive for thirty days while being hunted by not only professional mercenaries working for the show, led by Agent McCone (Lee Pace), but also the general public, who get reward money for reporting the location of — or even killing — the contestants. It absolutely leans into the “See it. Say it.” paranoia from a few years ago back when we were all being told by the Powers That Be to report any neighbor who had more than six people in the house for the holidays....
Remember those days? Fun times.
Set upon by both the corporate network and the general public, Richards finds himself running for his life — with a little help from his friend Molie (William H. Macy), who sets him up with a disguise and some free advice, neither of which helps Ben for very long. (Would that we all have a friend like Molie when the balloon finally goes up.)
Throughout the course of the contest, Richards has a number of close calls and lucky breaks, and along the way becomes a bit of a folk hero for many in the audience, who are enjoying both his ability to survive in the face of great peril and his brash “up yours” attitude directed at the network boss Dan Killian (Josh Brolin). Killian, I should say, looks absolutely as you would expect: shiny white veneers on his teeth, sculpted cheekbones, tailored suits, perfectly coiffed hair, and an elitist mindset that allows him to think that he practically owns Ben Richards and every other contestant on his shows.
This goes to the heart of the film, at least in my mind. Like The Matrix Resurrections back in 2021, The Running Man is a dystopian future-set indictment of present-day media, social media, the surveillance state, corporatocracies, and the “us vs them” cultural Marxism that threatens to rot our society from within. Even more so in 2025, the dystopian future in this film is so recognizably our own, given where things stand now. Just look at what’s going on in the UK and their censorship and social credit programs, and project forward maybe five years? And it’s not that difficult to imagine something like that happening here in the US despite our Constitution, because how many politicians here want to strip us of certain inalienable rights?
The technology isn’t that far removed from today’s tech, either. TVs that watch us watch them. Mobile devices that track our location. Cookies and algorithms that track our browser history, our purchases, our text messages and e-mail. All the while AI sits waiting around the corner ready for someone to fabricate your likeness out of whole cloth and make sure you say the right (or wrong) thing at the right (or wrong) time to the right people, who can then take that construct and craft an entirely new narrative.
Ben Richards is at that moment here. The network contrives to put him in a certain made-for-ratings narrative based on his early success and popularity, building a mythology around him that rivals that of season one, where one runner almost went the distance. Meanwhile, there are those who see Richards as the spark to light up a revolution against the corporatocracy, and they contrive to get him in contact with Elton Perrakis (Michael Cera). Elton is the very definition of the paranoid anti-establishment prepper who has taken steps to outwit the system, and Cera delivers such a solid performance that’s a departure from pretty much anything he’s done up to this point in his career.
Powell, for his part, is the heir apparent to Tom Cruise. He is both charming and charismatic while maintaining an everyman attitude. With this flick, I think he cements his action star status, and it’s obvious he took Cruise’s advice to film himself running to see how it looks. As Richards gets deeper and deeper into the month, he faces a choice of being just a guy trying to save his daughter’s life and a symbol of the revolution. Powell sells this emotional dilemma with just enough of an edge. It’s clear he’s in over his head, and he’s trying to make the best of it.
In that same vein, I think Brolin is having a great time chewing scenery with his veneers. Now, in the 1987 film, Killian was both host and network chief. Here, Killian is just the Big Bad Boss and the hosting duties are handled by the effervescent Bobby T (Colman Domingo), who’s flamboyant and energetic and over-the-top with his enthusiasm for seeing people compete. He gets the audience jazzed while at the same time understanding that the whole thing is rigged and he’s just getting his piece of it while it lasts, reinforcing the idea that everything you see in the media is a manufactured narrative that can change on a whim. Richards is a hero, until he isn’t. Bobby T understands the game, and he plays it to the hilt, even at one point telling Richards to go along with the story because everyone knows it’s a bit.
Now, there are a couple of convenient coincidences that work in Ben’s favor, yes. I mentioned Molie. There’s also the help he gets from Bradley (Daniel Ezra) and his little brother. But given how today’s YouTube/Rumble ecosphere works, and given how many people are out there with channels focused on perpetuating (or debunking) conspiracies and such, it’s not much of a stretch to think that there would be a whole set of channels dedicated to The Running Man, and they’d be on the lookout for Richards.
The risk with a character like Bradley is that he exists mainly for exposition, which means information dumps. But this infodump is done in a fun way that’s organic to the story and the dystopian setting. Bradley is a functional character, but he also gives Richards another reason to keep going. Turns out Richards isn’t the only one down on his luck with a sick infant...
Director Edgar Wright delivers a solid, well-paced action movie, and I don’t care that it didn’t perform to expectations at the box office this weekend. I’m recommending that you go see this film for the final moments -- the payoff for the entire film reaches into the cultural zeitgeist of today and hopefully makes you think twice about handing your information over to some app. There are robots that could be designed to take on menial tasks, and drones that make deliveries, and touch-sensitive screens that show everybody everything. And all the while in the background all of this technology is watching you and manipulating you and gathering your data to sell off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, some 14-year-old uses A.I. to doctor up some video of you waving a Confederate flag.
It’s time for you to stop being the product.
Go see The Running Man. And then get outside away from the surveillance state and go running, man.
I remember reading (and enjoying*) the Stephen King short story way back in the days of the first movie, but I don't remember any of the specifics. Is this movie closer to the book? The first movie had the same name and general concept, but not much more.
*Yes, kids, there was a time in the past where King could write good stories. I know he's lost that now, but he had a run of success back in the late 80's and early 90's that very few authors can match.
I'll add this to our list. We could do a double feature! Arnold's version and this one.
Have you seen Brendan Fraser in "Rental Family?" We paid to see it in the theater and loved it.
It is intensely Japanese, including much of the dialog (which is subtitled.) It was wonderful.