The Running Man

Jim Brown

Fireball

“Richards” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has always had trouble with authority. Usually, that’s because he doesn’t like carrying out arbitrary orders in his newly militarised USA. When he finally finds himself on the wrong side of the law, his options are reduced to participation in the ultimate game show. He can win his freedom and a life of luxury if he’s the last man standing, but along the way he is going to play ball with the manipulative producer “Killian” (Richard Dawson) who has no intention of paying him a cent. Before long, though, “Richards” begins to realise that there is an undercurrent of resistance thriving here and it’s goal it to destroy the network and reinstate some sort of liberty for the now put-upon citizenry. With the “Stalkers” like “Fireball” (Jim Brown) on his tail, what chance this ill-equipped band can learn who to trust and then prevail when all the cards are stacked against them. I wouldn’t say this is one of Arnie’s more charismatic efforts, nor do either Dawson nor his henchmen really create much of a sense of menace, but it does poke fun at the whole concept of money-grabbing reality television and showcases just what people are prepare to do, to tolerate and to cheer when they are watching. Indeed, for much of this humanity reverts to it’s almost brutally tribal, gladiatorial, roots. It’s impossible to know just how many ideas it may have either inadvertently spawned or rather depressingly predicted (or both) and had Paul Michael Glaser perhaps spent just a little more time on improving the inane dialogue and cast a more sinister “Killian” this could easily have been quite a threateningly portentous warning of things to come. In the end, though, it’s just a little lacking in the story’s own convictions; at times had more of the “Generation Game” to it than anything with plausible jeopardy and it’s Harold Faltermeyer score has dated it dreadfully.