The Running Man runs out of steam

After a spectacularly bad few weeks for the box office – with only the Predator sequel overperforming, probably because it was rated PG-13 – Paramount is no doubt eyeing the release of their Edgar Wright/Stephen King/Glen Powell would-be blockbuster The Running Man with unusual trepidation. As well they might. Although it has been marketed as an all-action thriller in the vein of the studio’s Mission: Impossible films, it comes with the slight air of tainted goods. Wright hasn’t had a hit since 2017’s Baby Driver; King has been damaged by both the let-down of The Long Walk earlier this year and his problematic Charlie Kirk comments; and while Powell is an effervescent and charming presence on chat shows and screen alike, the jury is still out on whether he’s an actual movie star.

Well, the good news for Powell, at least, is that The Running Man showcases him at his best. As Ben Richards, a beleaguered everyman who signs up for a deadly contest in a dystopian America – survive for 30 days in a televised endurance test in which you’re mercilessly hunted down by elite hit squads, and you receive $1 billion – he is simultaneously charming, heroic and adept at the physical demands of the role. King’s novel was first adapted in the Eighties with none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead – there’s an amusing in-joke about the Governator that’s too good to spoil – and Powell, although hardly a weakling, doesn’t have Arnie’s sheer physical presence. But he is a proper actor, rather than merely a screen icon, and he manages to make Richards an engaging and sympathetic lead. This will do his career ambitions no harm.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film is not a success. It’s hard to say whether Wright was the wrong director for the material or whether the script (by Wright and Michael Bacall) was simply DOA, but The Running Man ends up being an uneasy combination of broad social satire, bloody fight scenes and poorly conceived conspiracy thriller. The idea is that Richards is recruited by Josh Brolin’s Machiavellian television producer Dan Killian (resemblance to a former reality TV show presenter currently residing at the White House clearly intentional, in what is a highly politicized and determinedly left-leaning picture) in order to participate in an ultra-violent game show, but as he becomes a cult figure – “RICHARDS LIVES,” sloganeers shout – he starts to inspire the populace in ways unimagined by the powers that be.

All very Orwell or Huxley, but this is simultaneously over-explained – with laborious scenes in which characters spell out the subtext to one another – and barely touched upon. Although it’s not vastly long at two and a quarter hours, the picture drags horribly for what should be a fleet-footed pursuit thriller. To be sure, there’s 40-50 minutes of genuine entertainment to be had in its mid-section, as Powell evades goons with a mixture of smarts and disguise, and Wright’s Scott Pilgrim lead Michael Cera pops up in a scene-stealing cameo as an anarchist with literal mommy issues. But by the time you reach its series of endings – which, for a moment, promise something really subversive and then chicken out – it is hard not to be both bored and frustrated by the wasted potential.

King on screen, at best, can produce pictures that can scare the bejeezus out of you (The Shining, Carrie, The Mist) or be both inspirational and heartwarming, as in The Shawshank Redemption. Running Man falls awkwardly between the two and seems destined to take a box-office bath in consequence. Once, its anti-MAGA, determinedly liberal politics (complete with jokes about The Kardashians, which feel left over from a screenplay draft of a decade ago) would have chimed with audiences, but now it is hard not to feel that this is too little, too late. Richards lives, but The Running Man dies on its ass.