“Running Man” evokes a dystopian vision of America that is still not as bad as reality
Thirty-eight years later, running man It’s back on our pages, toying with a world that seems to have come with the silliness of the original. This new one has a much smaller, but no less watchable, star in Glenn Powell, who plays runner Ben Richards. Fired from various jobs for insubordination and caring for a sick toddler, he is pressured to join America’s favorite game show after a producer describes him as “the angriest man who ever auditioned.”
The display default has also been tweaked a bit. Instead of navigating a series of video game-like levels for the duration of a TV run, Richards must now survive 30 days in the real world, monitored by hovering network television cameras, armed “hunters to the teeth,” private police goons, and the general public who follow and film the showrunners using their smart devices. The longer he survives and kills more stalkers, the more money he earns. He is cheered (and booed) by a large number of brain-dead spectators called running fans, who are glued to their screens 24 hours a day. Like Richard Schwarzenegger before him, Powell goes from on-screen villain to popular hero, in front of the cameras as his antics skyrocket the ratings.
If it looks familiar, that’s because this new version running manwritten and directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs), draws as much from the original film and Stephen King’s source novel as it does from today’s reality. Today’s America overseen by a game show boss, where ICE squads team up with Dr. Phil McGraw to turn deportation raids into reality TV, looks primed for a reality show. Running man Reconstruction is the problem. Satire relies on caricature. And the new version is hardly an exaggeration. Does the idea of a deadly game show seem so far-fetched, in a world where the success of Netflix’s South Korean thriller series? Squid game (itself a change in running man Template) created a real, licensed Squid game-Competitive reality TV show style? Or when a smiling YouTuber named “MrBeast” lures contestants into a bathtub full of snakes? A few weeks ago I watched live as New York Giants rookie running back Cam Scottbow’s ankle twisted 45 degrees as if twisted by an invisible wrench while a bar full of opposing fans cheered.
