Released in 1987, The Running Man is one of about a thousand sci-fi action movies of its decade to open with an ominous title crawl that reads something like this:
THE YEAR IS 2012. PETROLEUM WARS HAVE DECIMATED THE ECONOMY. THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLS ALL KNOWLEDGE. BEING IN LOVE OR PETTING A DOG IS ILLEGAL. RATIONING LAWS MEAN THE PUBLIC IS ONLY ALLOWED TO FEEL TWO FEELINGS A DAY. UNTIL NOW …
The film takes place in a recognizable not-so-distant future dystopia, where the rabble are placated with bread-and-circus television programming. The top-rated show on the planet is The Running Man, a hyper-violent, live-broadcast game show in which “runners” (typically convicted criminals) attempt to escape a colorful cadre of professional assassins called “stalkers.” By navigating a series of themed arenas (there’s a fire one, a chain saw one, an ice hockey one, etc.), and taking out the stalkers in turn, the runners can (allegedly) win their freedom.
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Running Man is a fairly conventional, often-repetitive romp. Equal parts Wrestlemania and The Most Dangerous Game, The Running Man established a template for everything from Battle Royale to The Hunger Games. More than influential, it was notable for its wry, at times ruthless humor. The Running Man’s host is the charismatic Killian (played by real-life Family Feud host Richard Dawson), who dazzles his slobbish studio audience with his oily charm. Huddled masses in the street eagerly bet on the action, which is all rigged, anyway. The sleazy TV network’s other programs include a show called Climbing for Dollars and another titled, hilariously, The Hate Boat. It imagined a future of media-driven bloodlust that was grim, sure. But more than that, it was very, very stupid.
Thirty-eight years later, The Running Man is back on our screens, playing to a world that seems to have caught up with the original’s idiocy. This new one features a considerably less bulky, but no less watchable star in Glen Powell, playing runner Ben Richards. Fired from various jobs for insubordination, and tending to a sick toddler, he’s press-ganged into joining America’s favorite kill-or-be-killed game show, after a producer identifies him as “quantifiably the angriest man to ever audition.”
The show’s premise has been tweaked a bit, too. Instead of navigating a series of video-game-like levels for the length of a TV broadcast, Richards must now survive in the real world for 30 days, surveilled by hovering network TV camera droids, pursued by armed-to-the-teeth “hunters,” private police goons, and a general public who spot and film runners using a proprietary app on their smartphones. The longer he lasts, and the more pursuers he can kill, the more money he makes. He’s cheered (and booed) by a massive audience of brain-dead oafs called Running Fans, glued to their screens 24/7. Like Schwarzenegger’s Richard before him, Powell makes the transition from onscreen villain to beloved folk hero, mugging for the cameras as his antics drive the ratings.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because this new version of The Running Man, which is cowritten and directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), draws as much from the original film and Stephen King’s source novel as it does from present-day reality. A modern-day America overseen by a game show president, where ICE squads team up with Dr. Phil McGraw to turn deportation raids into reality television, would seem ripe for a Running Man remake. But that’s the problem. Satire relies on caricature. And the new version is barely exaggerative. Does the very idea of a lethal game show seem that far off, in a world where the success of Netflix’s South Korean thriller series Squid Game (itself a variation on the The Running Man format) spawned an actual, licensed Squid Game-style competitive reality TV show? Or when a grinning zillennial YouTuber named “MrBeast” baits contestants with ten grand to sit in a bathtub full of snakes? A few weeks ago I watched live as rookie New York Giants’ running back Cam Skattebo’s ankle twisted 45-degrees, as if cranked by some invisible wrench, while a bar-full of rival fans cheered.
The Running Man’s modernized-dystopian vision of America, where the gap between haves and have-nots is a gaping chasm, and huddled masses line up for food and prescription drugs, is almost too recognizable. A recurring gag in the film is a Real Housewives-styled reality-TV show called Americanos, featuring a gaggle of bickering, well-dressed women. There is no commentary. No take. No discernible slant on reality-TV programming, or the exploitations of the Bravo-verse. Rather, the Americanos segments elicit little more than a laughter of recognition. Same goes for so much else in the film. Is Josh Brolin’s scheming TV network exec—he plays Killian in this version—really any more cartoonishly evil than Donald Trump? If anything, our own world is arguably stupider, coarser, and uglier than the one in the movie. Some of its other near-futuristic touches—high-speed intercity rail, punctual postal deliveries, fee-free direct deposits made straight to your wristwatch—actually seem enviable.
The Running Man’s attempt to comment on America Right Now seems woefully inadequate and incoherent. It’s hard to take seriously a commentary of commercial entertainment that is packed with product placement for Monster energy drinks and Liquid Death canned water. Or, for that matter, a critique of the media working hand-in-glove with the government that is produced by Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Skydance Media, a company whose CEO and his family are currently cobbling together an expansive pro-Trump media ecosystem.
The Running Man is a story about standing up to “The Man” in which The Man (Killian) sneers at entertainment packaged with a “hypocritical moral message.” The film’s own phony revolutionary politics are, of course, guilty of just that kind of hypocrisy. It offers a ham-handed critique of the violent media spectacle, while serving up just that sort of spectacle in spades. Maybe this is just what passes for satire in Trumpland, where things are so lampoonish and sinister that they can’t really be parodied, only reflected back to us, through the just-slightly-wonky funhouse mirror of Hollywood.
Well, Running Fans? Are we not entertained?
