The Running Man

After a devastating nuclear explosion destroys an entire city, the radiation fallout has caused the citizens to become very sick, very often—particularly those who are in poverty. In this society, one half of the population are extremely wealthy and are able to rebuild most of the city and eliminate a lot of the lingering radiation in the air as well as have the ability to access the best medicines in the world, while the other half, divided by a physical military checkpoint, live in destroyed, graffitied buildings.

It is in this setting we meet one poverty struck individual, Ben Richards (Glen Powell). He and his wife live in a mildly decent apartment building—working various jobs, but barely being able to make ends meet. To make matters worse, his infant daughter is very, very sick from a bout of the flu and needs stronger, more expensive medicine to get better. Ben was just let go from his only job for standing up for his coworkers and now doesn’t know what to do, until…

A TV ad advertises they are looking for contestants for The Running Man contest. The rules are simple: survive out in the open for 30 days by avoiding the hunters and others looking for him and he’ll win a billion dollars. Each week he makes it, he’ll win more and more money which he can give to his family. The real challenge is trying to stay off everyone’s radar when the entire society lives for social media, smartphones, and television—big brother is definitely watching, too.

Ben is willing to do all he can to save his daughter–or die trying… literally.

After having written nearly dozens and dozens of reviews for Christian Spotlight on Entertainment for nearly two decades, I sit and ask myself, “Wow what could Hollywood do next? What will they recycle this time?” and most importantly, “How much lower can they stoop with their abominable and horrid content?

And just when I thought I’ve seen all the debauchery and stomach-churning content I can possibly witness, I get “The Running Man,” a stereotypical, boneheaded, testosterone-filled action flick (comedy too?) with very few uplifting morals and all the language, profanity, sexual content and violence one could ever ask for. Did I forget nudity? Oh yeah, there’s some of that too, lest Director Edgar Wright forgets anything else to make our jaws drop.

To be fair, many viewers have been asking for this kind of content for years now. In a sense, they’ve begged and asked for it everytime they’ve paid for a ticket, or bought the video/DVD, streamed it, whatever the case may be. They say, “Hey keep upping the ante, bring on more! We hunger for blood, death and the like!” And Hollywood happily agrees, after all, they don’t really care what the audience thinks of a film, they’re in it for the money.

There was a time when filmmakers actually stood for something. Walt Disney, for example, wasn’t perfect when he was alive and producing his films, but at least he was generally sensitive to his responsibility to his audience, determining what they should and shouldn’t see—while making his entertainment available to not just adults, but younger audiences. Did he want to make a profit? Sure. But at least he generally remembered his moral responsibility as a gatekeeper to his audience. When you forget that, and you lose yourself as a writer, as a director, as a producer or whatever the role is…

Does Director Edgar Wright know what his audience?. Is it the audience that thirsts for some comedy? The audience that thirsts for a drama? The audience that thirsts for violence? All three? While “The Running Man” hits all three audiences, mostly, his real audience are the thrill seekers and the action fanatics.

And yes, you’ll get plenty of mindless, stabbings, shootings, knifings, beatings and even corpse-debasing content in “The Running Man.” I literally filled an entire page of my review sheet on violence alone; that’s never good (fair warning, be careful reading the Content for Concern, especially the violence). What could have been a film full of heart (which did have its moments) and light comedy ends up being very dark, depressing, hopeless and disappointing.

To the film’s credit, yes some performances were good. I particularly liked Glen Powell’s performance. He carries two different burdens on his shoulders, the fight to save his daughter and the fight to end tyranny and an authoritarian-like society. While Glen can be comedic at times, he never lets that side of him take away from his real focus. Likewise I really enjoyed the camerawork, from overhead shots, to close and extreme closeups, the technique was nearly flawless. Still the content is a major concern. Speaking of which…

Content of Concern

**WARNING: Graphic and disturbing content listed below. Reader discretion is strongly advised**

VIOLENCE: A guy is blown up by a bazooka. People die in multiple ways in a TV ad, including one man being put through a giant tree shredder (his remains are shown being spit out of the machine). A man tells a doctor that he sees bunnies dying in a blender. People are stabbed and killed in a TV ad. A city is seen burning. A guy falls off a human-sized hamster wheel during a game show. There is a discussion about a girl who died across the street. A man is hit with an electric baton. A man threatens to throw a man if he speaks about his daughter again. A character narrowly misses falling. A character has his head slammed onto a table. Someone is shot during a TV ad. A guy threatens to kill a kid for spotting him during The Running Man contest, and then, as a backhanded apology, he gives the kid, who is overweight, a snack box. Men are tortured for information. More characters are shot and killed. Another child is threatened.

A biker is seen being hit with a tire iron.An elevator drops with someone inside. A grenade is thrown. A building explodes killing eight soldiers outside a building. A third kid is threatened. A deep fake video of Ben has him stating on camera that he laughed when the soldiers died outside of the building, and he laughed at the kids of the victims.

A child and his father are shot at during a chase. A person is run over by a car (no remains shown onscreen). Ben, as part of his mandated recordings he has to make, sarcastically states that he really is an evil person who likes to eat puppies, blow up courthouses and make love to illegal immigrants. A person is set on fire. Two cars collide and explode.

Graphic images of mutilated corpses are blurred out on TV. A corrupt NCD soldier shoots up a house with people inside. Soldiers are electrocuted and burned alive. A character is stabbed, and there is a knife and gun fight. Someone cuts a guy’s ankles. A man is assassinated, and we see some of his brain matter against a metal object. Someone is car-jacked and is taken hostage. Multiple NCD soldiers are killed. Someone is held at gunpoint. Someone fakes having Black Irish explosives (an extremely powerful IED).

Footage shows Hunters killing a family (a wife and her child before the screen goes dark). There is a massive shooting scene inside a plane, and we see the plane nosedive and explode. There is a prolonged graphic fight scene. A TV studio is vandalized and destroyed, and a man is executed on TV.

VULGAR LANGUAGE: F*ck (and F*ck You) (12), F*cking (15), F*ck You Up (3), Middle finger (5), M*therf*cker (3), F*cked (1), Sh*t (18), Sh*t eaters (1), Sh*ting (1), Dip Sh*t (1), BS (6), D*g Sh*t (1), P*ssy (2), D*ck (2), B*lls (2), Nuts (1), B*stards (3), A** (12), Kiss My A** (2), A**-hole (1) B*tch (2), N*ght B*tch (1), Son of a B*tch (2), Hookers (1), Psychopath (1)

PROFANITY: J*sus (2), D*mn (1), G*d-d*mnit (2), G*d-d*mn (4), H*ly Sh*t (2), H*ll (8), H*ll-hole (1)

MOCKERY OF CHRISTIANITY: Ben disguises himself as a blind priest. When someone asks Ben if he’ll go to h*ll for using a condom with his girlfriend, Ben says that the guy might go to hell if he doesn’t use one. (Ben jokes that a Catholic relative had too many children and felt like he was there every day of his life.) A street preacher stands near a sign that says, “Christ the Redeemer damns you to hell.” A contestant goes to a place called the Holy Grail Casino, a den of iniquity festooned by massive crosses on the outside. Someone turns a wall-mounted cross upside down to reveal a secret panel.

SEXUAL CONTENT: Someone mentions she doesn’t let guys grab her a** when she is waitressing for low-lifes. One of The Running Man contestants is an open lesbian and kisses her partner before the elevator closes. She is also an incredibly masculine woman in her physique and in the way she speaks. There’s a reference to prostitution and a reference to someone spreading her legs. There’s talk, by a fake priest, about using rubbers. A lesbian woman films herself at a casino (which is named for something incredibly sexually inappropriate).

NUDITY: Ben shows his bare butt to the camera. Fully naked women are shown in a TV ad, but their private areas are pixeled out. A man is seen in a towel after taking a shower.

ALCOHOL: There are multiple moments where people are shown drinking, getting wasted, etc.

DRUGS: Ben needs to compete in the contest so that he can receive better medication for his very sick daughter. One character is seen receiving a couple injections to feel better. People are seen smoking cigarettes.

OTHER: Someone violates the stolen valor act. A guy starts puking and bleeding and passes out.

WOKEISM: Very Heavy. Tight ontrol what people watch, what they say and what to believe. Class discrepancies and privileges of the upper class. A man is designated as the symbol of the revolution of the people against the government. There are discussions of . There are discussions of how the NCD soldiers should be serving the people not the government.

Morals

Ben uses his struggle to fight for better circumstances, not for his own selfish gains but to better the circumstances of his entire family and particularly his sick daughter. His intentions are good (the killing he does isn’t though) and when he loses his way about half way into the film, he is brought back to reality through the people he encounters along the way.

Jesus told us that the poor would always be with us. Poverty, as a whole, cannot be eliminated through societal means, but we are encouraged, as Christians to pray for those who are financially poor, and poor in spirit. We are encouraged to feed the hungry, help the sick, and to do this without hesitation. The Bible states this with regards to poverty…

“Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble” —Psalm 41:1 NIV

“Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work —Deuteronomy 15:10-11 NIV

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord,, and he will repay him for his deed.” —Proverbs 19:17 NIV

“One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” —Proverbs 11:24-25 NIV

Final Thoughts

I realize how lengthy this review is. I made every effort to condense my thoughts, which were MANY, as I walked out of “The Running Man.” And perhaps my mind did some running away of its own, but that’s for another time…

As a story, there are moments where “The Running Man” works. The premise is similar to that of Stephen King’s other works like “The Long Walk,” and I spoke to someone who has read many of Kings’ books and stated that “The Running Man” and the “Long Walk” were written right about the same time, give or take a few years.

“The Running Man” is certainly nihilistic in certain areas: God is either dead or doesn’t exist in this film, life is pointless because all that people do is make each other suffer for their own entertainment, etc. That kind of message is not something we need in this day and age, where every time you turn on the TV or social media there’s another explosion in a city or acts of terrorism somewhere. What we need now is hope, and the “Running Man” is anything BUT that.

Apart from all this, there is so much exhaustingly putrid content that even the strongest moviegoer couldn’t stomach, especially the violence. This film is not recommended for Christians or anyone in this case. Run VERY VERY far away from this spectacle…

About hope in the Bible

Discover God’s promise for all people—told beautifully and clearly from the beginning. Discover The HOPE! Watch it on Christian Answers

Be wise, every follower of Christ should avoid spiritual darkness and seek spiritual light

Learn about DISCERNMENT, wisdom in making personal entertainment decisions

Every time you buy a movie ticket or buy or rent a video you are in effect casting a vote telling Hollywood, “I’ll pay for that. That’s what I want.” Read our article

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.