The Running Man (1987)

 

150 Best Science Fiction movies, Rolling Stone list

 

#145. The Running Man (1987)

 

One of the ways we judge the best SF is its predictive qualities and though this film might not be the best, it is among the most predictive, of SF cinema. It’s barely better than Mediocre and quite Hypocritical, but still, its touched with a weird sort of Brillance because, against reason, the Mediocrity and Hypocrisy somehow sharpened some of its points. It’s about the Morally Corrosive power of TV, and Mediocrity and Hypocrisy are TV’s Bread-and-Butter. 

It's built around the SF Theme of Gladiatorial Combat/Blood Sports, and many of its Processors on the same Theme were better (in cinema there was “The 10th Victim” (1965), “Punishment Park” (1971), and “Rollerball” (1975), while on TV there was the “Star Trek” episode “Bread and Circuses” (1968) and the “Doctor Who” serial “Vengeance on Varos” (1985)), it still managed to provide a clear mirror reflecting an emerging Reality. For example, the film’s Introductory Scroll reads:

 

“In the year 2017, the world economy has collapsed. The great freedoms of the United States are no longer, as the once great nation has sealed off its borders and become a militarized police state, censoring all film, art, literature, and communications. With full control over the media, the government attempts to quell the nation’s yearning for freedom by broadcasting a number of game shows on which convicted criminals fight for their lives.”

 

Now read that one more time. Notice the missing word?

 

“Democracy” is unmentioned, nor do we hear it in the Rhetoric of the film’s Heroic Resistance. Its death is not decried, because the ideal was starting to be forgotten even when the film came out in 1987. In “The Running Man’s” disregard for any Ideas worth fighting for, it ultimately Glorifies what it Pretends to Condemn, and in doing so, vividly demonstrates the mechanisms of its Hypocrisy, a World where Sporting Events, Gameshows, and Reality TV dominated our metaphoric Town Square, drowning out all other considerations, it wallows in the Populist Corruption of its Present and our Future.

 

Regarding Reality TV this film had specially prescience because, though there were earlier examples of the Genre like “Queen for a Day” (1956) and “An American Family” (1970), Reality TV didn’t become a true Phenomenon until a few years after this film was released with shows like “COPS” (1989) and “The Real World” (1992). Though this film didn’t invent the Warnings it presented, it made them feel more imminent and now looks less-dated than almost all related Satires.

 

It even anticipated some technologies, but only by demonstrating the next-step in what already existent. The TV Studio was only a couple years ahead of the Real-World Avid Technologies Computer-based Non-Linear Editing System for Video (1989), which made Reality TV programs like “The Real World” and “Number 28” (1991, a Dutch show that USA’s “The Real World” Plagiarized) feasible on the low-budget. Some form of the Internet had already existed for generations and the Public Internet we all now use was first deployed in 1983, but when this film was released in 1987, on-line shopping, done like it is in this film, was still a few years off. Jumbo Trons were invented in 1980 (and became a Brand Name in 1985) but were still new enough to be more common in SF cinema than the Real-World (they had some Wow-factor in the movie “Blasé Runner” (1982)).

 

And another tech detail, in the movie’s 2017, people still used VCRs (he-he-he-he).

 

It's an adaptation of a novel of the same name (first published 1982) by and then-unknown Thriller Author named Richard Bachman; the Producers reportedly complained about how expensive the purchase price was given that Bachman was such a nobody. Soon after, Bachman was revealed to be Mega-Best Selling Author Stephen King, a huge publicity coup for a movie made by people who mostly hadn’t read the actual book.

 

Scriptwriter Steven E. de Souza was a veteran of Action Movies (Souza earlier Scripted a Schwarzenegger vehicle, “Commando” (1985), and the year after this film he’d give us the decade’s greatest Action Masterpiece, “Die Hard”) and he was required to present fifteen drafts to three Directors before the final version was approved. During this process the script ejected most of the novel except the basic premise.  

 

Both the novel was film were influenced by earlier works, the most famous being Author Richard Connell’s classic short story ''The Most Dangerous Game'' (1924), which had been directly adapted or simply lifted from hundreds of times already. There was all SF Author Robert Sheckley’s “Victim” Cycle of short stories and novels, especially “The Seventh Victim” (1953 and basis of the above mentioned “The 10^th Victim”) and “The Prize of Peril” (1958, basis the films “Das Millionenspiel” (1970) and “Le prix du danger” (1983), and the movie “The Running Man” was so much closer to “Le prix du danger” than its own novel that a lawsuit resulted).

 

The novel is grim and claustrophobic, the movie is sadistically comedic. The novel’s Everyman Hero, Ben Richards, is gaunt from being on the edge of starvation, his wife has resorted to Prostitution to feed the family yet they still can’t afford the medicines their daughter needs, so he volunteers for the Murderous Game in Desperation. The film, in contrast, has Ben played by Body-Builder-turned Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is a Police Helicopter Gunship Pilot, framed for a Crime he didn’t commit, and pressured into participation in the Game with other Convicts because it offers Fabulous Prizes like, "trial by jury, suspended sentence or even a full pardon." At the end of the novel Ben flies an airplane into the TV Studio’s skyscraper (an act of Self-Sacrifice that is unthinkable in Pulp Fiction post-9/11) and his Rebellion appears futile. In the film, Ben’s last act of Defiant Violence is to pummel the main Villain with his bare hands after he’s successfully brought the Whole System Down.

 

This was Schwarzenegger’s eleventh Starring Role, though he still hadn’t learned how to Act, he’d already won our hearts. This movie even works in his signature Catchphrase “I’ll be back” from “The Terminator” (1984). In all of his films since “Stay Hungry” (1976) he’s surrounded by more talented Thespians but still Arnold stole scenes because of his imposing appearance and dead-pan wit.

 

Not this time though, here he’s up-staged by his Real-Life friend, Veteran Comic Actor and TV Game Show Host Richard Dawson. Dawson plays the main Villian, Damon Killian, also a TV Game Host as well as one of the most Powerful Men in the USA. For the Audience, the recognizable Dawson playing a fictional version of himself made Damon’s public Pomposity and behind-the-scenes Malevolence an absolute Joy to Hate.

 

In one scene, he’s walking through the Network’s lobby with his Assistant (Karne Leigh Hopkins) and an elderly Custodian, Dan (Sidney Chankin), accidently runs his mop of Damon’s shoes. Dan gushes apologies, Damon turns on the charm and tells Dan he’s doing a great job, but seconds tells his Assistant, “If that asshole is still mopping the floor tomorrow, you’ll be doing it for the rest of the week.”

 

Critic Roger Ebert described Damon “as the egotistical, sleaze-bag host … [who] always seems three-quarters drunk, Dawson chain-smokes his way through backstage planning sessions and then pops up in front of the cameras as a cauldron of false jollity.” Critic Vincent Canby described him as “a personality composed of equal parts of Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin and Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore (Mickey) Robespierre.” Another Critic said dubbed him, “Darth Vader the Gameshow Host.”

 

And looking back, its shocking how well this anticipates the incredible influence soon to be wielded by TV Hosts in the Real-World. Oprah Winfrey’s Talk Show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first aired the year before this film came out and Donald Trump’s Reality TV/Game Show, “The Apprentice,” came in 2004. Winfrey and Trump had been friends but parted ways over separate Campaigns of Influencing regarding two back-to-back US Presidential Elections: In 2007, Winfrey showed her Political clout by Endorsing then-Candidate Barach Obama who went from Polling badly to a Landslide Victory. Then in 2011, Trump became the leader of the National Racist Campaign of Birtherism while trying to unseat then-Incumbent Obama, and seemed not to have called it quits on that vile lie even after he, himself, became President in 2017 -- THE SAME YEAR THIS MOVIE!!!!

 

Though the first half of the film seems cliché on first viewing, but a second viewing holds some surprises. Most other Action Movies wouldn’t have gone more than fifteen-minutes before Dawson dragged Ben into his Machinations but here, we’re more fully introduced into the World.

 

The film strangely under-lines it points, and demonstrates it’s treating those points in a knee-jerk fashion, in the same gestures. This was not cheap production, but lavish in its effort to create that cousin of cheapness, tackiness. The films Dance Routines were Choreographed by Paula Abdul, herself soon to be a Future Reality TV/Gameshow Hostess on “American Idol” (she joined the Cast in 2000).  All the while, the starving Masses, dressed in rags, gather in rapt attention before massive Jumbo Trons in the Shanty Towns, huddling near flaming barrels for heat. 

 

An earlier film on the same Theme, “Rollerball,” featured Action Scene that better staged and shot, but that’s not entirely a criticism. “Rollerball” was far more about its Players, while in “The Running Man” the Thematic Focus is shifted to the Audience’s casual acceptance of the giant lie. It’s not ineffective but it sacrificed even an attempt at depth or artistry; this was about TV, so it looked made-for-TV.

 

One Resistance Member, William Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto), says, "I worry about the kids. The network shut down the schools. The kids are either hiding or getting basic training, brainwashed by TV." Later in the film there’s nary a child to be seen, nor any families; all the relationships in this film are based on Profession, Ideology, and/or Exploitation, so no Relationship ever moves beyond Plot Functionality.

 

It mocks Product Placement in commercial films, like when Damon pitches “Cadre Cola” while talking to Reporters. But it had its own Product Placement: Adias sponsored the skin-tight, yellow, Lycra, costumes worn by the “Runners” (the Good Guys/Victims). Coors Beer is on sale in a Shanty Town, a detail I found crassly perfect.

 

Though the novel had the darker tone, the movie did have the World as We Know It ruined almost a decade earlier than the book. The movie lingers on the gap between Rich and Poor widening beyond anything in this Nation’s history; those not regulated to Shanty Towns are Fearfully Complacent because they know how easily all can be taken from them. This Wealth Gap had always been an Albatross hung around the neck of the American Dream, but seemed defeatable during the USA’s post-WWII Economic Expansion, that didn’t last though, by the mid-1970s Wage Stagnation had set in. In only a short time after this film came out, the Wealth Gap started widening even faster.

 

One specific plot change from the book, where the “Runners” are not Volunteer Players but coerced Prisoners, had messaging behind it. Though I think everyone has some sense of Germany’s Nazi Party’s total control of National Media starting in the 1930s, most have forgotten that they were also, on the eve of WWII, the World’s Pioneers of TV media, but only their Sports Programing ever captured a significant Audience. Here, Sports and Propaganda have merged in the manner that the Nazis were working on but didn’t have time to realize. This became the Dystopia’s next-step in an all-to-familiar Ritualized Denigration of Chosen Deviants, directing the Masses’ Resentments and Rages more towards the State’s own Purposes.

 

In 1936-8 the Soviets staged Show Trials to justify Mass-Murdering Purges. In 1938 the Nazis used the example of the Jewish Assassin Herschel Grynszpan to incite the Kristallnacht. In 2016 Trump announced his Candidacy for the US Presidency ranting, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”  

 

Trumps words make us recall this film’s Introductory Scroll mentioning “sealed off its borders.” In the Real-World of this film’s release, the USA was moving towards a more Rational and Compassionate Border Policy guided by President Ronald Reagan. But under Trump’s Real-World of 2018, we had Federally Mandated Kidnapping and Abuse of Children, and Concentration Camps for Adults, as part of Trump’s “Family Separation” and “Zero Tolerance” Polices regarding the Border.

 

One scene demonstrating the Totalitarian Police State is more disturbing in retrospect than 1987. In the film’s Dystopia, Airport Security proves less heavy-handed than our post-9/11 Real-World.

 

Some of the film’s overall all feel, where its Virtues and Failings are one-in-the-same, are likely a result of its troubled Production. The first Director, George Pan Cosmatos, was presumably going to keep the movie closer to the original novel, but that deal fell through. SO did the second one with Director Rob Cohen. Both these men had track records with highly successful, but Critically panned, Action Movies. The third choice, Paul Michael Glaser, was experienced for sure, but with no real successes in cinema.

 

Glaser is best known as an Actor, he had a Lead Role in “Starsky & Hutch” (TV series first aired in 1975). After moving Behind the Camera he received praise for his work on the hyper-stylish TV Show “Miami Vice” (first aired 1984). In cinema though, his work was generally dismissed. His only film before “The Running Man” was “Band of the Hand” (1986) which was both terrible and a bomb. His employment for “The Running Man” seems largely by default and Glaser initially turned the project down because the pre-production schedule too short. It was presumably shorter still after he was talked into the job. Actor Schwarzenegger later wrote that Glaser, “shot the movie like it was a television show, losing all the deeper themes. In fairness, Glaser just didn’t have time to research or think through what the movie had to say about where entertainment and government were heading and what it meant to get to the point where we actually kill people on screen. In TV they hire you and the next week you shoot and that’s all he was able to do.”

 

“The Running Man” was far superior to “Band of the Hand,” and a financial hit, but Glaser seems to have gotten little street cred from it. During my research, time and time again, the Critics spitefully complained that the film should’ve been Directed by Peter Verhoven, already triumphant with the not-unrelated Dystopian film “RoboCop” (1987) and soon to triumph with Schwarzenegger vehicle “Total Recall” (1990). That seems over-harsh, but after this film, Glaser mostly Acted and Directed TV; his handful of later cinema was unimpressive and a couple, like “The Air Up There” (1994) “Kazaam” (1996), were embarrassing.

 

The Character Ben was a System Loyal Worker Bee who only modestly Rebelled, he refused to open fire on crowd of Civilians during a Food Riot. Because of this, he’s Rail-Roaded for the Mass Murder that resulted and he’s portrayed as the “Butcher of Bakersfield” by FOX News (Ooops, I got the movie and the Real-World mixed up for a moment). He’s confined to a Labor Camp where he hooks up with two Resistance Members, Harold Weiss (Marvin J. McIntyre) and the fore-mentioned William. They successfully escape. Even after that, Ben’s membership in, and shared motivations with, the Resistance is tenuous.

 

Ben leaves the Resistance to seek out his brother, only to find his brother’s been sent to a Re-Education Camp and Amber Mendez (María Conchita Alonso), another System-Loyal Worker-Bee, now lives in the apartment. Amber’s life-style, little different from the modestly Affluent of the Real-World of 1987, contrasts sharply with how the rest of the Masses live. Ben kidnaps her, but she manages to turn the tables on him, and his recapture is a big News Story.

 

That is when Damon and his TV show take over the plot.

 

The Contestants on the show “The Running Man” were Conventual Criminals so generally not up to the Show’s Martial Challenges, and ratings were slipping. When Damon sees the New Reports of the recapture of the virile, handsome, muscular, Ben, he barks to his staff, “Give me the Justice Department – Entertainment Division!”

 

Ben is brought before Damon and introduced to his new Legal Council (Ken Lerner), “I’m your court-appointed theatrical agent.” Ben is handed a pen and forced to sign away all rights to residuals and spin-offs. The Council says, “Here, here! Use my back!” Ben signs forms and then stabs the Council in the back with the pen, saying, “Don't forget to send me a copy.”

 

Ben’s motives don’t seem as highfalutin as either the USA’s Founding Fathers nor the film’s Resistance. When forced into the Game he plays not with a Survival-Driven Desperation, but clearly enjoys the Competition and has developed a Personal Grudge against Damon.

 

Once the Game commences, Ben’s Adversaries, called “Stalkers” come after him one-by-one. There’s a clear pattern in the casting of these parts:

 

Sub-Zero, whom Damon describes as a “Chinese Nija Warrior,” is played by former World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Star Professor Toru , who a huge list of bit-parts on his resume, often billed as “Sumo Wrestler” or “Bodyguard,” and would co-Star in another Schwarzenegger vehicle, “The Last Action Hero” (1993). Sub-Zero zips around on ice skates and slaps around exploding Hockey pucks with a stick that has a sharpened steel blade. As Ben dispatches each Stalker, he looks into the camera and throws out a one-liner and in this case it’s “Hey, Killian! Here’s Subzero! Now… plain zero!”

 

The next, Buzzsaw, is played Professional Power-Lifter Gus Rethwisch, once a contender for World’s Strongest Man. He rides around on a dirt bike and wields a chainsaw that can cut through steel. Ben cuts Buzzsaw in half with his own weapon and quips, “He had to split.”

 

Dynamo is played by Champion Amateur Wrestler and Professional Opera Singer Erland van Lidth. He’s howlingly funny as the most overweight of the Stalkers, wearing a suit adorned with lightbulbs, and shooting lightning bolts as he sings the songs of Richard Wager.

 

Fireball is played by Professional Boxer Jim Brown who wields a flamethrower.

 

Captain Freedom is played by another WWF Star Jesse “the Body” Ventura. Ventura had just Acted alongside Schwarzenegger in another SF film of the same year, “Predator,” and both Ventura & Schwarzenegger would soon successfully run for Governor of two large US States (1999 & 2004, respectively) and there was a movement rewrite the US Constitution so Immigrant Schwarzenegger could run for President (2004). Captain Freedom is presented as Ben’s kindred spirit who finally, modestly, Rebels against the System because Abusive Damon had soiled the Honor of the Game. That paradoxically suggests such a Game could have Honor, but we should not forget that in the Real-World, while running for Office, Ventura had spoken of his background in US Military Special Ops and famously said, "Until you have hunted men, you haven't hunted yet."

 

Even Damon’s Bodyguard, Sven, was played by another Professional Bodybuilder, Sven-Ole Thorsen. Damon’s nasty to him too, ''What's wrong, steroids made you deaf?''

 

Critic Michael Wilmington called attention to the film’s obvious obsession with muscle-bound men (even in the Shanty Towns, no one looked starving) and, specifically referring to Schwarzenegger, wrote, "suggests that his Frank Frazetta frame shows best in these fantasy sci-fi settings.”

 

Ben, Damon, and the Stalkers are vivid Cartoons while all other Characters merely one-note, yet even acknowledging this, Actress Alonso as Amber shines almost as much as Actor Dawson. She was a former Miss World Contestant, a veteran of Venesulian TV Soap Operas, and almost Heroically High-Spirited in most her film roles. After Ben’s recapture, Character Amber discovers evidence that he’d not lied to her, engages in her own modest act of Rebellion, and is Sentenced to the Game with him along with recently recaptured William and Harold. Ben and Amber predictably fall in love, but it was less predictable was how well Actress Alanzo sells it. This was a distinguishing feature of the best of the Dumb Action Flicks of the 1980s: the cast consists of a Gaggle of Cartoons grounded by one Naturalistic Performance, and, often, that’s the Damsel in Distress. Alonzo would soon star, without Schwarzenegger, in the sequel to a Schwarzenegger film, “Predator 2” (1990).

 

The Action of the Game is fake-looking which proves ironically one of the film’s most convincing elements as it’s modeled after the notoriously pre-scripted “Sporting Events” of the WWF. At the same time, it’s among the film’s deepest flaws because, like WWF, it becomes grindingly repetitive.

 

(WWF was founded in 1953, became a phenomenon in 1982, and forced change their name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002 after a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund.)

 

Ben moves through Levels of Play it’s like he’s trapped inside the video game “Street Fighter” which was released the same year as this film. Both took many elements from the legendary “Pogoda Challenge” from the last film by Martial Artist and Actor Bruce Lee, “Game of Death.” Lee died during its filming in 1972 and the film was never completed, but that long sequence has appeared in so many other films (including a Chop-Suey-esque bastardization of the same title released in 1978) that the sequence has proven to be Lee’s most influential work. The Runners skin-tight, Lycra costumes were also influenced by that film.

 

Though this where the film begins to drag, it’s also where the Future is most pointedly predicted. In retrospect we can’t help but see that Trump’s Reality TV/Game Show “The Apprentice” franchise made his Presidential Run possible and Actor Schwarzenegger, no longer Governor, took over as Host for that show in 2016 during Trump’s Presidential Run. Not-for-nothing, Trump had strong ties to WWF/WWE, twice hosting its Wrestlemania events at one of his soon-to-go-Bankrupt Casino Hotels in Atlantic City, engaging in long-running, wholly-scripted “feud” with WWF Owner Vince McMahon, and in 2017, and as President, appointing McMahon’s wife Linda (former CEO of WWF, Media Personality, and failed Politician) as head of the Federal Small Business Administration.

 

Though the film pretends to preach the Gospel that “Bread and Circuses are a bad,” it aligns itself with the fictional TV show’s Audience their collective Bloodlust. When Ben overthrows Brings the System Down with improbable ease, all he really does is replace Damon as the new Master of Ceremonies with the same Crowd cheering with the same Orgasmic Bloodlust, or as the Rock Band The Who sang, “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss” (“Won’t Be Fooled Again” (1971)). The film’s Hypocrisy and its Commercial Success were one-and-the same, it never truly wagged its finger at anything, it just pointed the way.

 

“The Running Man” generated its own video game, encouraging the Players to gleefully take Condemned Prisoner Ben’s place and kill Stalkers. It inspired a Real-World TV show, “American Gladiators” (first aired 1989) which was somewhat less lethal and so popular it was mimicked in Countries all around the World.

 

In fairness, had the film tried to be Sincere, what it was attempting was legitimately difficult. French Director François Truffaut famously said, “There’s no such thing as an anti-war film,” because the near-inevitable inclusion of Epic Battles, Heroes being just that, Camaraderie between Soldiers, and even the Graphic Violence, Glorifies the War it tries to Condemn far better than most Army Recruitment Advertisements. Still, I don’t think there was any Sincerity even attempted here. The film is far-more Exploitive than most its Thematic Predecessors and, moreover, encouraged its Descendants to be more Exploitive still in their increasingly Thin Plots and Gratuitous Sadism, making the lip-service to Thematic Purpose increasingly mute (“Battle Royale” (2000), “Predators” (2010, the third film in the “Predator” franchise), “The Condemned” (2007), “Gamer” (2009), “The Jurassic Games” (2018), “The Hunt” (2020) etc).

 

But there were later films there at least tried to be more substantive:

 

“Gladiator” (2000) wasn’t a SF film but a Historical Drama with precious little History in its content, yet even its Wish-Fulfillment Fantasy made the Battle to Restore the Ideals of Roman Republic front-and-center.

 

The SF franchise “The Hunger Games” (first film 2012) played down the Glory of Violence and played up the challenges of remaining Just in Revolutionary times. The Theme of Won’t Be Fooled Again was central to the final film (2015), but then it was decided that the final film wasn’t final in (2023).

 

In 2021 a remake of “The Running Man” was announced, to be helmed by much-Acclaimed Director Edgar Wright who has a substantial and successful resume in SF,F&F. It promises to return to the novel’s grimmer and more serious intents.

 

Trailer:

The Running Man - Official® Trailer [HD] (youtube.com)