THE RUNNING MAN
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1987 Craig Good
In a future somewhere between MAX HEADROOM and ROBOCOP, the number-one television show is a gladiator fest where the contestants (read "victims") are convicted criminals. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a cop who refuses to gun down unarmed citizens in a food riot and winds up in a labor camp, framed as "The Butcher of Bakersfield."
After a prison break and arrest, he becomes the featured player on Richard Dawson's RUNNING MAN show. Ratings go up as bad guys go down. One after another, government gladiators go after Arnie in the large game area, and one after another he dispatches them. So far I've told you nothing you couldn't learn from the trailer, and that's the problem with the movie.
THE RUNNING MAN is a film with motion-picture ideas and television sensibilities. Director Paul Michael Glaser, formerly of Starsky and Hutch fame, delivers numbingly endless action sequences and no direction for Arnold. I've maintained for a few years that Schwarzenegger is underrated as an actor. To continue making that argument I'm afraid I'll have to ignore this particular data point. The man does have talent, but he needs a decent script and a little help from the director or he comes off as a muscled mannequin.
I can't totally pan the movie because it does have its moments. For a while I thought it would approach ROBOCOP's humor. Soon, though, the formula of setup/action/wisecrack wears real thin. The most redeeming feature (aside from some deftly-handled visual effects by SFX) is the treatment of editing for TV "news." I can only hope that after seeing THE RUNNING MAN the audience approaches everything they hear and see from the "news" media with renewed suspicion. I just suspect that the audience will be rather small, and more interested in the action than the story. But, so was the director.
--Craig
...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good
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