‘The Running Man’ Conjures a Dystopian Vision of America That’s Still Not as Bad as Reality

Thirty-eight years later, The Running Man is back on our screens, playing to a world that seems to have caught up with the original’s idiocy. This new one features a considerably less bulky, but no less watchable star in Glen Powell, playing runner Ben Richards. Fired from various jobs for insubordination, and tending to a sick toddler, he’s press-ganged into joining America’s favorite kill-or-be-killed game show, after a producer identifies him as “quantifiably the angriest man to ever audition.”

The show’s premise has been tweaked a bit, too. Instead of navigating a series of video-game-like levels for the length of a TV broadcast, Richards must now survive in the real world for 30 days, surveilled by hovering network TV camera droids, pursued by armed-to-the-teeth “hunters,” private police goons, and a general public who spot and film runners using a proprietary app on their smartphones. The longer he lasts, and the more pursuers he can kill, the more money he makes. He’s cheered (and booed) by a massive audience of brain-dead oafs called Running Fans, glued to their screens 24/7. Like Schwarzenegger’s Richard before him, Powell makes the transition from onscreen villain to beloved folk hero, mugging for the cameras as his antics drive the ratings.

If it sounds familiar, it’s because this new version of The Running Man, which is cowritten and directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), draws as much from the original film and Stephen King’s source novel as it does from present-day reality. A modern-day America overseen by a game show president, where ICE squads team up with Dr. Phil McGraw to turn deportation raids into reality television, would seem ripe for a Running Man remake. But that’s the problem. Satire relies on caricature. And the new version is barely exaggerative. Does the very idea of a lethal game show seem that far off, in a world where the success of Netflix’s South Korean thriller series Squid Game (itself a variation on the The Running Man format) spawned an actual, licensed Squid Game-style competitive reality TV show? Or when a grinning zillennial YouTuber named “MrBeast” baits contestants with ten grand to sit in a bathtub full of snakes? A few weeks ago I watched live as rookie New York Giants’ running back Cam Skattebo’s ankle twisted 45-degrees, as if cranked by some invisible wrench, while a bar-full of rival fans cheered.