Movie review: ‘The Running Man’

FloridaGator80

Despite his single-emotion acting and the mediocre cinematography and campy special effects of his early efforts, you cannot help but like Arnold Schwarzenegger and pay money to see him in action. He absolutely knows how to connect with an audience and has starred in classic and iconic action flicks that became huge hits. Today, I’m looking at “The Running Man,” one of his less-remembered films and one in which he is wrongfully convicted of a crime and must run a popular TV show’s always-lethal gantlet (it’s not a “gauntlet” … see word definition later in this review). Adapted from a Stephen King sci-fi novel, it is R-rated, but don’t worry about that – it’s no worse than any PG-13 offering today.

‘The Running Man’
(1987; 101 minutes; rated R; directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso and Richard Dawson)

ARNIE RUNS … AND KICKS SERIOUS BUTT

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and added and updated some links on April 27, 2016. I again expanded this review on Dec. 5, 2020. I again expanded the review on Nov. 13, 2024.)

“The Running Man” tried to address societal ills such as the permeation of “reality” television and a fascist law-and-order society as well as making grand statements about both. Seriously. In an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. However, since it was made as a vehicle for Arnie, it is too campy to be taken seriously and just too much fun to watch (especially the work by Richard Dawson) to take seriously at all.

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In “The Running Man,” Arnie is a government chopper pilot who’s ordered to fire on unarmed food rioters. Since he won’t kill innocent people, Arnie’s framed for doing so after the government shoots the rioters anyway and he winds up on the future’s hottest television show “The Running Man.” In the show, a group of “stalkers” go after runners fleeing through a maze of homicide. The game is rigged; the government lies; and the TV production is what brings it all together.

Arnie gets tossed into the game but ultimately, like in the original “Total Recall,” he’s joined by a woman and other patriots to save the day. It’s mostly about Arnie, but they do save the day.

Well, that’s about all you need to know to enjoy this one, so I’ll focus on what passes for acting here (remember, never confuse acting with entertainment). Besides, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize from the beginning that Arnie’s gonna come out on top here.

So, let’s take a look at some of the primary cast:

  • Schwarzenegger is Schwarzenegger here and nothing else. His character is “Ben Richards” and he does honest and ethical well and kicks serious butt like he always does – with verve. He’s watchable and knocks this one off with his usual single-emotion (no, it doesn’t count when he tries to act) that is totally effective. Not to spoil a surprise, but Arnie doesn’t get an Oscar for this one. He has also been in “Commando” (click here to read my review) and was actually acting and much better in the simply wonderful “Twins” (click here to read my review) and “Predator” (click here for my review). Arnie’s best action effort is, of course, “The Terminator,” but I like him even better with Jamie Lee Curtis in the action-espionage thriller “True Lies” (click here to read my review).
  • As I wrote earlier, Dawson is the class of the acting field here. He plays “Damon Killian,” who’s the energetic, back-stabbing, evil TV show host who’s responsible for ratings and killing government prisoners. Dawson mocks his own real-life game shows in his interaction with the audience here (he even kisses old ladies) and is so sleazily smooth that he tosses this one out as a bad guy that you don’t even remember his iconic good-guy character on TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes.” “The Running Man” is, in my opinion, his best role in a film. Dawson was also in “King Rat,” “The Devil’s Brigade” and a string of TV roles including on such notable hits as “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and “McMillan & Wife.” No Oscars or Emmys in his career, but Dawson did win Best Supporting Actor for “The Running Man” from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. He died of complications from cancer in 2012 at the age of 79.
  • Maria Conchita Alonso plays “Amber Mendez” and she gets the evidence that proves Arnie is innocent … oh, who cares? The plot doesn’t matter. She doesn’t do that much for the film other than put a woman in the middle of the best action. At best, Alonso holds her own with some mediocre acting and has also been in the little-remembered and spectacular Robin Williams film “Moscow on the Hudson” and “Predator 2.”
  • The two best stalkers are former football star Jim Brown as “Fireball” and pro wrestler Jesse Ventura as “Captain Freedom” (how this lug got elected governor of Minnesota probably even today puzzles the dimwits who elected him). Brown, who has also been in “The Dirty Dozen” and “Any Given Sunday,” is the calm, collected firebug who uses a flame thrower on his victims. Ventura, who was with Arnie in “Predator” and did a great job in that one, is the steroid-ripped retired narcissistic star who comes back into the fray. Both do good work, but it’s overshadowed by the cheapness of the film.
  • The actor on the bad guys’ team with the best back-story is Erland van Lidth, who plays “Dynamo” (the electricity-zapping stalker). He sings his own opera here and it shouldn’t be a surprise that he does a nice job. In real life he sang opera (at a nationally recognized company), founded his own computer company and was the alternate heavyweight wrestler to the 1976 U.S. Olympic team. In “The Running Man” he is as good as anyone (let’s say mediocre compared to his role in “The Wanderers” – click here for my review). He died of a heart attack in 1987 after only four acting credits including “Stir Crazy” and playing “Terror” in “The Wanderers.” As an actor, van Lidth is very limited and in the final grade isn’t that good.

Others in the film … well, they’re really not worth mentioning.

Now, for a word about some of the worst acting (if you can call it acting).

Both Mick (“Fleetwood Mac”) Fleetwood and Dweezil (“My Father’s Famous”) Zappa give probably the worst efforts in the most useless supporting roles ever done in recent Hollywood history. Both are part of the underground looking to overthrow the fascists. Yawn. “The Running Man” was Fleetwood’s first film and one of eight credits in his acting “career.” Zappa has just over twice as many credits, including “Jack Frost” and “Pretty in Pink.” Thankfully, Fleetwood was very special in his musical career while Dweezil can only say he has a cool name.

So, in the end you really don’t know that you’ve seen some social satire (yes, it’s there) and a film that espouses a serious message. But between Arnie’s violence and Dawson’s over-the-top “Damon Killian,” you know this isn’t one for the serious drama section of the film vault.

A note about language: Ganlet and gauntlet each has its own meaning. Here it is from the Grammarist … “Gantlet was the original spelling of the word referring to a form of punishment in which people armed with sticks or other weapons arrange themselves in two lines and beat a person forced to run between them. It came from the earlier English word gantlope, which in turn comes from the Swedish gatlopp.1 Gauntlet is an alternative spelling of gantlet, but it also has several definitions of its own, mostly related to gloves.” So you RUN a GANLET, but you throw down a GAUNTLET in the pure definition of the two words. Clint Eastwood should have done better in naming his film “The Gauntlet.” He could have used the proper vocabulary.

“The Running Man” was the 38th ranked film at the U.S. box office in 1987 with $38.1 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. That was just ahead of “Spaceballs” ($38.1 million) and “No Way Out” ($35.5 million) and just behind “Wall Street” ($43.8 million). It turned a modest profit off a $27 million budget, according to Wiki. The No. 1 film of the year was “3 Men and a Baby” with $167.7 million. Here are films from that year that I have reviewed:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Dawson’s birth name was Colin Lionel Emm and one of his nicknames was “Kissyface.” Arnie’s middle name is Alois. Alonzo’s birth name is María Concepción Alonso Bustillo, while Ventura’s birth name is James George Janos.
  • Fleetwood is 6-foot-6 and that’s towering by Hollywood standards where micro-men usually top out at 5-foot-5. Arnie is 6-foot-2 and Ventura is 6-foot-3.
  • When Arnie campaigned for governor in California, his tour bus was named after the film. Also, the TV show “American Gladiators” was based on the film (but not the killing).
  • Paula Abdul did the choreography for the dancers at the beginning of the film.
  • “The Running Man” was the final film for both the prolific Dawson and the much less prolific van Lidth.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “As with most other readers at the time, the filmmakers had no idea that Richard Bachman, the writer on whose novel the film is loosely based, was none other than Stephen King.”
  • Director Paul Michael Glaser, who in my opinion didn’t do a very good job with what he had to work with, is best remembered as a member of TV’s original “Mod Squad” trio.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: (I don’t know whether to believe it or not): “Many people who worked with Richard Dawson, on game show Family Feud (1976) say that in real life Dawson was much like his character Damon Killian in his handling of underlings.”

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