I do not know if it is because of watching the Mad Max trilogy, but I had images in my head of this weird old scifi with Schwarzenegger. For a moment I thought that the title was “Marathon Man”, but I quickly found the correct title. “The Running Man” from the title is a television show, in fact, the most popular television show in 2017. Convicts are sent into an arena where they have to try and surive their hunters. When they do survive, they have “paid their debth to society”. Nobody ever does though to the great delight of the audience that bets on the show and wins toys.
Up until when we are thrown into the middle of The Running Man show, the film is an acurate and still actual critique on television. Information is manipulated to control the opinion of the masses and what they get in return is downright flat entertainment. They even find joy in death and destruction.
The main character in the film is Ben Richards who is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger who, however 40 years old at the time, looks both young when he smiles and furious when he grins. The perfect face for the part! Richards was a police officer until he was framed for the slaughter of innocent civilians, but during The Running Man he gets his change to set things right and to show the common man that they are manipulated by the media.
“The Running Man” is a good and entertaining film. For the time, and especially for the audience it reached, it is quite brutal at times. I found the film remarkably topical, both in message and in way of filming. A classic that you should watch (again some time).
