Edgar Wright has mostly stayed in the pocket of action cinema since Hot Fuzz paid loving homage to the bombastic genre in 2007. But because subsequent projects like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Baby Driver maintained the same comic self-awareness about how divorced the genre was from anything approaching reality, The Running Man suggests his first pure action vehicle––the kind of brainless, trigger-happy adventure Nick Frost’s bumbling cop in Fuzz would have thrown on between rewatches of Point Break and Bad Boys II. It’s perhaps the first film of his that you couldn’t describe as a genre-comedy hybrid. Which isn’t to say he’s made something humorless, but that he’s consciously trying to retreat from making an “Edgar Wright film” with a joke-heavy screenplay that would threaten to diffuse tension. What a shame, then, that the most spectacular sequences here are when he allows himself to let loose, working towards his instincts rather than against them.
Of course, the worry for many Stephen King fans is that Wright has further watered-down one of the author’s bleakest dystopian tales after a less-than-beloved ’80s adaptation. Rest assured, the quip-heavy trailers are selling an archetypal Edgar Wright joint that never fully materializes. In the first act, levity is largely relegated to the deadly, Verhoeven-style game shows which dominate the airwaves in a dystopian U.S., dark laughs taking a back seat to the financial struggles of Ben Richards (Glen Powell), newly laid off from work and seeing these high-stakes quiz shows as a way to raise enough money so his sick young daughter can see a doctor. Auditioning at the network headquarters, his abrasive nature in the physical and mental aptitude tests catches the eye of producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), who sees in him the first possible person who could win the deadly gameshow The Running Man, where a team of armed mercenaries hunt down three contestants over 30 days, the objective being to avoid death. Forced to go back on his promise not to try out for that show when presented with the rolling cash prizes for surviving, Ben is coerced into a game he knows is rigged against him before the chase even begins.
It’s to Wright’s credit that he hasn’t depoliticized the story, even if it can feel like the safer, focus-grouped cousin of One Battle After Another. By happy accident, the most prescient aspect is Brolin’s antagonist pushing hyper-violent entertainment for the masses in the flyover states, sounding eerily like Paramount’s new CEO David Ellison, who is currently making Variety headlines through a report claiming he wanted the studio’s core audience to become MAGA-voting men. But even in translating the broader anti-authority sentiments inherent to King’s story, Wright doesn’t pull the punches you’d expect if this was greenlit just a few months later. His Running Man is pointed in its depictions of government media censorship and state-sanctioned police brutality, and––even if it doesn’t add any revolutionary ideas to this familiar dystopic setting––electrifying in depicting resistance to both.
Wright’s film is more faithful to the source material than the prior adaptation, which gave its protagonist an even graver origin story, but is at its most exciting when integrating his stylized slapstick into this comparatively grounded tale. As thrilling as it is to see Powell face off against goons in apartment blocks and airplanes, an extended cameo from Michael Cera as a cop-hating anarchist who has transformed his home into a Rube Goldbergian deathtrap (in the off chance they show up at his door) is the ultimate highlight. Not coincidentally, this is the only moment where it feels like Wright has taken a scene from the source material and completely redesigned it to suit his own sensibility––there are no set pieces here that fail to excite, but this is the only one that lives up to the potential of what the most hypothetical Edgar Wright take on The Running Man would look like.
As much as I’ve enjoyed Powell’s prior auditions to become the next great blockbuster leading man, this is the first time that his Tom Cruise aspirations became too distracting, especially within a plot that gradually pitches his character as an Ethan Hunt-style savior of humanity. The actor’s charm lies in his humor, and although it doesn’t fit him awkwardly, the tough-guy act required here feels like he’s subverting a carefully built, easygoing, affable screen persona far too early into his career. When his character is cornered and forced to think on his feet, Powell manages to grapple back traits of a more relatable, in-over-his-head everyman, which are better fits; the film is more effectively tense when it allows itself to shatter the idea of Ben Richards as an invincible tough guy who can effortlessly overcome the odds.
Fans of King’s novel have expressed doubt that this spirited take will maintain the bleak conclusion. While Wright has spoken for years about making a more faithful adaptation, he still puts that climax through the Hollywood machine. It results in a clumsy finale that plays out like an awkward hybrid of endings to the novel and the 1987 film, one that feels especially out of place after the third act largely follows its source to the letter, and will likely feel just as jarring to audiences unaware of any prior iterations of this story. For as critical as I may sound here, The Running Man largely succeeds as fist-pumping popcorn entertainment, only appearing to fall short when held up to scrutiny it was never designed to receive. Had it ended on a less-compromised note, I’d be tempted to call this Wright’s comeback after the misfire of Last Night in Soho.
The Running Man opens in theaters on Friday, November 14.
The post The Running Man Review: Edgar Wright’s First Pure Action Vehicle is a Partial Victory first appeared on The Film Stage.
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