Edgar Wright’s 'The Running Man' Delivers High-Octane Thrills, But Skips the Deeper Insight

Edgar Wright’s latest endeavor, a frenetic remake of The Running Man—based on the Stephen King novel about a deadly, televised game show where citizens are hunted by assassins—launches at a relentless pace that rarely eases. This constant velocity successfully provides a powerful endorphin rush, allowing the film to steamroll over issues of plausibility and prevent the audience from examining its sociopolitical worldview too closely. In many ways, this lack of probing is beneficial, as the new adaptation, while dirtier and nastier than the 1987 film version, offers little substantive new insight into the nihilistic cruelty and hollowness of modern life. Once the initial rush fades, the film’s conceptual framework begins to rapidly dissolve.

Glen Powell takes on the lead role of Ben Richards, imbuing him with a surly, tightly coiled energy. Ben's life is defined by hardship: he, his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson), and their chronically ill baby daughter are crammed into a tiny apartment. They cannot access necessary medical care due to its exorbitant cost and the endless treatment waitlists. Sheila works grueling hours in a vaguely defined, unsavory establishment—possibly a brothel or strip joint—and is contemplating accepting dubious "favors" from male clientele for extra "tips." Her increasing burden stems from Ben's unemployment, as he has been repeatedly fired for insubordination and unchecked anger.

Richards is framed as a man of principle, not a criminal, who is driven by a strong moral compass to act violently on behalf of the bullied. In a society where democracy has devolved into a corporate dictatorship that values only privilege and domination, Ben exists in a state of perpetual anger. The film draws a parallel to the 1987 Ben Richards, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was also a slandered man of principle—a police helicopter pilot who refused to fire on food rioters.

Ben decides that the only viable way to secure the money needed to save his family is to participate in one of the many popular, high-risk game shows. Despite promising Sheila he would avoid it, he auditions for the show with the largest payout: “The Running Man.” This rigged competition, hosted by the glamorous dandy Bobby T (Colman Domingo), requires trios of "Runners" to evade death for thirty days while hiding within the general population. It has never had a winner. The Hunters, hired assassins, track the Runners’ progress with drone cameras, while ordinary citizens earn cash rewards by using a dedicated app to rat them out.

The show's creator, executive producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), believes Ben’s mercurial personality and defiant opposition to authority make him the perfect candidate to become the show's first (permitted) winner. Initially, the show portrays Ben as the chiseled, white male equivalent of the 1980s American "Welfare Queen" trope—a lazy leech who spurned his employers’ generosity and whose sloth is actively endangering his child. Bobby T incites the public's fury by shouting, “He bit the hand that fed him, because that’s what dogs do!” Sheila and the baby are also vilified and must be relocated to protect them from bloodthirsty viewers.

However, Ben rejects Killian's corrupt advice, choosing instead to follow his moral instincts. He connects with a secret network of mutual aid providers, including a guns and equipment dealer (William H. Macy), a pro-Runner podcaster (Daniel Ezra), and a gadgeteer (Michael Cera) who is obsessed with avenging his murdered dissident father.

Wright, who has consistently demonstrated his gifts as a showman, particularly in the "Cornetto Trilogy" (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), confirms his reputation as a brilliant craftsman here. The filmmaking is technically dazzling: information-delivery montages have the recognizable "Hot Fuzz" snap, the soundtrack (supervised by Kirsten Lane) is packed with deep-cut hits, and the chases and fights are precisely cut for speed and impact by Wright's long-time editor, Paul Machliss.

Nonetheless, the film’s relentless pacing proves to be a double-edged sword. It leaves the viewer wishing the film had been longer, or at least slowed down to allow for character development. The supporting players Ben encounters on his bloody journey—while promising and vividly portrayed by the actors—are rushed through their arcs so quickly that even potentially powerful moments (like Cera’s character having to choose between survival and vengeance) fail to land with emotional weight.

Ben’s own characterization suffers from this haste. He is presented as a wisecracking, sarcastic, borderline anti-hero—a type Bruce Willis might have excelled at twenty-five years ago. While his constant, seething aggravation provides reliable humor, he is largely defined by only two or three basic emotions, which becomes tiresome. An actor with the iconic screen presence of Willis or Schwarzenegger, whose cartoonishly vivid personas made nuance unnecessary, might have more easily drawn the audience into the character's headspace and made it easier to overlook the lack of depth. Powell is capable, but he is not yet equipped to carry such a wildly imperfect film on his own shoulders.

In contrast to the 1987 film, which primarily unfolded on lurid television soundstages, Wright, who co-wrote the script with Michael Bacall (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), situates the remake in a technologically advanced but ethically degraded version of reality. The cherished American Dream, once sold as a vision of plenty by U.S.-produced movies, is presented here as a shabby illusion visible to everyone, including the cynical elite who resell it to the masses as a distraction. The economic system is clearly rigged to ensure prosperity flows only upward, forcing the citizenry to work themselves to exhaustion, live in fear of financial ruin, and queue in endless lines for basic necessities. Ben encapsulates this despair by noting that the happiest day of his life was when his daughter tasted ice cream for the first time, "when our number came up for the park.”

The Running Man clearly strives for topicality, explicitly championing causes like a living wage, adequate and affordable medical care, affordable housing, union protections, and legal accountability for corporations and governments that abuse the public trust. Certain segments successfully capture the cheerful grotesque sting of the TV ads, propaganda clips, and news reports found in the original The Running Man and other Paul Verhoeven satires like Robocop and Starship Troopers, all set in societies devoid of virtue.

However, the film’s overtly calculated attempt to plug into the contemporary zeitgeist falls short. Despite the impressive, retrofitted production design and filmmaking prowess, its vision of humanity as a desperate, ignorant mob (with only a few exceptions) undermines the very idea that things could improve if enough people unite to expose the truth—even through antiquated means like the 1980s style printed 'zines suggested by the script. There is no compelling evidence within the film that the disenfranchised masses, whose plight the script purportedly champions, are genuinely moved or edified by watching Ben’s rebellious acts and anti-capitalist slogans on television. He appears to be nothing more than their latest shiny object of distraction.

Ultimately, if the movie did not strive to be seen as more than mere escapism, these shortcomings would be moot. But because it does, they remain problematic. As the final credits roll, The Running Man feels less like a madcap sendup of a corrupt society and more like an unintended byproduct of the very machine it attempts to critique—made with the idealistic goal of undermining the system from within, but ultimately getting ground up in its gears.