Glen Powell stumbles in Edgar Wright’s uneven dystopia thriller The Running Man

The Running Man (NC16)

133 minutes, opens Nov 13
★★★☆☆

The story: Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a father who must raise money to pay his daughter’s medical bills. His meagre pay and slavish work conditions force him to audition for a humiliating but relatively safe reality show. Instead, he is offered a spot in The Running Man, a game show in which participants have 30 days to avoid being killed by assassins to win a billion dollars. Hosted by the widely adored Bobby T (Colman Domingo) and produced by the suave Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), the contest has so far chalked up a horrifying zero per cent survival rate for contestants over the full 30 days.

British director Edgar Wright’s ability to deliver pulse-racing action with strong character development is showcased brilliantly here – in the first two acts, at least. The momentum sputters out by the third, let down by a climax that tries to jam in too much in too little time.

Technically, this action thriller set in a futuristic hellscape is not a remake. Yes, the 1987 movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger exists, but the new movie goes back to the source, the 1982 novel of the same name by American master of horror Stephen King.

The other master behind this project is Wright, maker of movies with fervent followings such as heist thriller Baby Driver (2017) and cult comedies Shaun Of The Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013).

The Running Man reunites the film-maker with Michael Cera, who played the title role in Wright’s much-loved comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (2010).

Cera plays Elton, a lone-wolf activist, with deadpan perfection. He is so good that he makes the characters played by Brolin and Domingo feel anaemically underwritten and under-performed.

An actor better able to deliver smarm laced with menace – Sam Rockwell comes to mind – could have been cast as the villainous television executive.

Powell is fine as the working-class hero, but his performance fails to rise to meet the demands of the busy final act.

The 1987 Schwarzenegger movie is set in a totalitarian dystopia that reflects the period’s Cold War anxieties about communism. Wright’s version is a savage satire of hypercapitalism that feels timely and realistic: In the future, the greedy corporations that exploit workers also pacify them with televised blood sports.

If one is poor, goes the logical trap, then one is obliged to sign up to be humiliated or killed on television. Otherwise, stop complaining.

It is such a shame that it all falls apart at the climax amid a flood of unsubtle messages about deepfakes, manufactured consent and class consciousness.

Hot take: The goodwill earned by strong action and sharp satire is almost cancelled out by a needlessly twisty, overstuffed finale.