The Running Man (1987) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When the truth is hard to prove, fight for it until it’s out there.


PLOT


Based on the 1982 novel written by Stephen King aka Richard Bachman, 1987’s The Running Man takes place in a fictional 21st century where the United States have become a totalitarian police state after a worldwide economic collapse & resource scarcity. As a result, the government controls the country through propaganda and censoring unsanctioned art. The most popular titular controlled game show at this point revolves around incarcerated criminals literally fight for their freedom. When Captain Ben Richards refuses to open fire on an unarmed food riot, his fellow officers do so and he gets framed for it. 18 months later, he escapes a prison labor amp alongside resistance fighters Harold Weiss & William Laughlin, who offer him a place in their causes but her turns them down hoping to reunite with his brother Edward. Instead, he meets ICS composer Amber Mendez who reveals he’s being re-educated. Because she believes in the media that he’s the Butcher of Bakersfield, she alerts authorities rather than help him bypass airport security. Only after his arrest does she find  evidence of him being framed. Ben only agrees to take up the offer of The Running Man by host Damon Killian (who wants to boost the show’s ratings), only to prevent Leighlin & Weiss from participating. Killian still does so anyway and sends all three of them in rocket sleds to the game zone that’s divided into four quadrants. Despite being a dangerous event, Richards defies the odds when killing famous competitors known as stalkers for the first time. He’s able to kill two named Subzero and Buzzsaw (Professor Toru Tanaka & Gus Rethwich), but Leighkin gets fatally wounded in the crossfire. In the midst of the action as well, Amber is thrown into the game zone when finding unedited footage of what really happened to Richards in Bakersfield and Weiss finds a satellite uplink. He’s able to crack the code for her to memorize before he gets killed by another stalker named Dynamo (Erland Van Lidth), but Richards makes a shocking decision to spare him which makes the audience now root for the runner for the first time. Killian secretly offers him a position to be a stalker after killing Fireball (Jim Brown), but he predictably refuses. When moving forward, Amber finds corpses of past winners that prove their victories to be state propaganda. The two then get picked up by resistance leader Mic who takes them to his command center. When retired stalker Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura) refuses to face Richards as he catches on to Killian’s lack of honor, the latter makes digital footage of the former defeating the runners, manipulating the narrative like his airport arrest. As Ben sees this himself, Amber gives Mic the uplink codes which exposes all of Killian’s lies, including revealing the protagonist’s innocence. Simultaneously, Richards leads the resistance to infiltrate the ICS where they prevent the network from disabling the broadcast. Amber is able to kill Dynamo when electrocuting him and Richards would send Killian into a rocket sled that only loses control and explodes, killing him in the process. With the audience celebrating, the film ends with Ben and Amber sharing a kiss before the broadcast network goes offline.


THOUGHTS


You know it’s quite ironic that Stephen wrote this and The Long Walk not that far apart from each other, yet they share ideas that became inspiration for Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games due to the premise on how much of a fatal tool propaganda can be. In this adaptation, director Paul Michael Glaser does indeed succeed in pointing out how easy it can for violence to be desensitized and how the truth can be manipulated by the media. As a moviegoer, I for one don’t feel desensitized with fictional violence off of the reminder that it’s not really happening and I avoid the news for the most part because I don’t want to be misled of what’s true and what isn’t. While there is also fair credit in pointing out the action scenes are well edited and the production design of the game zone is quite imposing because it gives a vibe that this could happen. I mean it was pretty stunning to see someone get choked out with barbed wire. Back to my point, I think the point still gets across that it will always be important to speak up no matter how complex the stakes can be for you because no one else is gonna do it for you. The arc of Ben Richards in this movie is known to be much different from the book due to having a different motive to be in the game, but Arnold Schwarzenegger still succeeds in getting the message across. Ben is depicted as a guy who thrown against the wall to be part of corruption and punished for having a conscience. Rather than suffer forever, he kept fighting until he didn’t have to and with a motive like that, it’s hard to not look up to him. It was indeed proven uneasy of a feat for him to get through since he did have lots of help along the way since Yaphet Kotto and Marvin J McIntyre both respectively show Laughlin and Weiss as individuals who had their cautions yet still used their courage to keep on fighting for their beliefs. The same can be said with Mick Fleetwood in his given time as Mic because while soft spoken, he knew exactly when and how he wanted to get the message across that the government had too much control. While these guys were helping hands, Amber was the final in the coffin that brought back freedom of speech. María Conchita Alonso stood out because it is her naiveness that led to her realizing people really are capable of lying. Had she not seen the news lie of what she saw, there’s no telling what she’d do after. She and Ben hit it off in the end not because the plot demands a happy ending, but off of how they relate to being cornered for selflessness. Together, they’ll sure have a bright together from then on. Last but not least, Killain was a great villain here because Richard Dawson succeeds in making him a figure who’s predictably too ruthless with the power he’s been given. His on screen charisma is a facade for what he’s all about and he uses it up all so fast when he all he knows is failing in the blink of an eye. In one way, he does set up the template we see out of Coriolanus Snow due to how he’s too comfortable thinking his way is the only way to go about life. Luckily, his reign in running the show before he could even realize it. It’s hard to know what happens when a dictator like this goes down, but we can all hope it gets better instead of worse. This movie is still fun on its own, but there are still a handful of things that hold it back from being better. For instance, why does the John Doe file label him as an 'anti fire worker'? I usually don't read things like that because I know they don't always drive the plot, but it feels like a stretch to say firefighter. It then feels a little dumb that Ben has the bare minimum of a disguise at the airport, and yet the security doesn't recognize him without the beard. Even the travel pass feels flawed because a card like that should always have a photo ID rather than rely on who's holding it. And if phones are so advanced that they remove the earpiece & mouthpiece, they shouldn't have the wire either. Moving on, there were many witnesses at the airport who saw Ben didn't hurt anybody. More of them should've spoken up besides Amber and if you're saying they're being re-educated like Ben's brother, that should be pointed out. Also, why is there even a mirror down the tunnels the rockets go through? I mean it doesn't seem that it would be there for maintenance purposes, so you might as well put a camera there instead. Then again, how did Killian get approval to throw Amber into the game? She did obtain the evidence illegally, but it does sound like it would still take its own paperwork to pull off overnight even if he's hosting this show. The game zone may be intended to be a wasteland for the runners to go through obstacles apart from the stalkers, but why would there be so many gasoline barrels? If Killian wants to keep controlling the narrative, there shouldn't be an advantage like that for the runners to capitalize. And if the audience saw Amber found the bodies of past winners before Ben killed Fireball, the cat should be out of the bag of Killian has been doing. There's also no point for Captain Freedom to have his costume on when choosing to quit the show. Lastly, the guys hosting the betting pool are lucky they didn't pay everyone for the bets on Richard because that's a lot of money to pay up. Ignore these things however, then you're still set for an 80s blast. In short, 1987's The Running Man is one of the few fantasy action movies that knows how to play it straight with its ideas and still be fun overall. If those are the kind of movies you're into, check this out when you can.