It’s been a year for Bachman.
Definitely the darker and more mean spirited side of Stephen King, we’ve gotten two adaptations this year: The Long Walk and The Running Man. Now I already wrote the review for The Long Walk (spoiler: I loved it) and Dhalgren made some pretty well thought out predictions for The Running Man in a video essay earlier this month. Go check that out here if you haven’t already but spoiler for that, he’s right about everything.
Like the novel, Edgar Wright’s movie follows Ben Richards, an angry jobless man with a sick child who would do anything for the money for medicine. In this case, doing anything is joining The Running Man: a gameshow that doubles as a nationwide man-hunt to the death. If he can make it thirty days, he’s home free and rich, but no one ever has. Still, he’s desperate and the 500 new bucks signing bonus can save his daughter’s life.
Some Good Stuff
As far as adaptations go, I was kind of shocked how one-to-one this is. It follows the basic structure of the book almost to a tee, save for the ending. Book fans will also enjoy the general darker, more dystopian vibe of this. They tried hard to strike a balance between the bombastic nature of the 1987 movie and the novel, and I think it mostly works. I liked a lot of the sets, costumes and the general feel of most scenes.
The performances are pretty great too. Glen Powell is dripping with charisma, and I couldn’t help but smile when his character is really going for it. Josh Brolin is PERFECT casting for Killian and really nails the balance between TV mogul and ruthless business man. Michael Cera’s a lot of fun here too, and no one in the cast really stood out in a bad way.
That’s about it for the stuff I liked though, and it honestly makes me upset. The Running Man, to me, is the worst kind of bad movie because it’s almost great. It just has two fundamental issues that ruin all the good will and momentum it has going for it.
Who is Ben Richards?
This movie has an identity crisis, and nowhere is it more concentrated than in its lead. The Ben Richards of the Bachman novel is an asshole, a utilitarian who will do whatever he needs to do to survive. The Ben Richards of the 1987 movie is an idealist, a man who refuses to bend in the face of an all-powerful evil corporation. Edgar Wright’s film decides to do both, depending on the scene, and because of this, we never get a good sense of who Ben is and what he will do from scene to scene. He just does whatever the scene needs him to do, and if he wasn’t played by such a charismatic actor who brings a lot of likability to the role, I think everyone would have even worse feelings about the movie.
The End, or Is It?
This was always going to be a movie that was made or broken by its ending, and the ending was the nail in the coffin for me. I hate it when movies are non-committal about their ending and unless you’re 1985’s Clue and you have some kind of gimmick, it’s bad story-telling. The Running Man sets up an ending, pulls out the rug from under you and gives you a different one. It’s a continued reflection of this movie’s inability to commit to a single coherent idea or theme. It wants to do everything, and therefore, it accomplishes nothing.
It seemed to me like they were trying to do something akin to V for Vendetta, but the Wachowski’s film stumbled ass backwards into being a story about collective action. The Running Man, unless fundamental changes are made (like they were in the 1987 version), is a story about anarchy. It is about one man burning down the system and because they weren’t willing to do that, it ends up being a weak story that devolves into hero worship. One man, if he’s good enough, can change the world and all that. It was tiring years ago, and it feels prehistoric here.
I really wanted to like this movie, but in the end, it’s messiness ruins it. To quote Dhalgren’s thoughts, it’s completely lacking in sincerity. At the end of the day, this movie doesn’t have much to say because it doesn’t take any of the ideas to their most logical conclusion. While you can still have an okay time if you turn your brain off, there’s not much to engage with.
