It was directed by Paul Michael Glaser, Yes, Starsky from Starsky and Hutch.
It’s based on a Stephen King novel. King had a knack for writing mediocre novels that could be turned into excellent movies. Steven E. de Souza wrote the screenplay. It bore a sufficiently close resemblance to Yves Boisset's 1983 film The Price of Danger to allow the producers of that French film to successfully sue for plagiarism.
This is a post-apocalyptic story but in this case it was an economic apocalypse. This resulted in most people getting a whole lot poorer but of courser the elites became a whole lot richer. It also resulted in social chaos.
The country is now a police state. The populations is brainwashed and terrorised into submission. The policy is to offer them bread and circuses. The circus is in the form of a TV show called The Running Man.
This is perhaps not a pure post-apocalyptic movie. This is not a wasteland in the mode of A Boy and His Dog (1975). The collapse of society has not been total. But it is very much a dystopian movie and the post-apocalyptic and dystopian genres do overlap.
Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cop who is ordered to massacre unarmed civilians. He refuses and ends up in a labour camp. He makes a daring escape. He finds that his brother’s apartment where he hoped to find shelter is now occupied by Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso). He is recaptured, but this time falls into the hands of Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), the sleazy producer and host of The Running Man TV series. Amber turned him in to the cops but when she sees the TV newscast report that claims Ben killed several people during his escape attempt she figures out that people are being lied to. She knows that he did not kill anyone. Maybe Ben will now have an ally.
Whether he likes it or not Ben is now going to be a contestant on the show.
In the show there are Runners and Stalkers. The Stalkers hunt down and kill the Runners much to the delight of the folks watching at home. Ben is going to be a Runner, along with his two buddies from the labour camp and Amber.
Their aim is not just survival but to destroy the show by hooking up with the Resistance.
Much mayhem will ensue.
Maybe Schwarzenegger isn’t the world’s greatest actor but he’s quite competent, this is well within his range and the man has serious charisma. He even copes with some truly cringe-inducing dialogue.
Richard Dawson is delightfully and outrageously evil and slimy.
The action scenes are fine although they’re not as varied as they might have been.
This is obviously a satire on television. A satire with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the back of the head.
I saw this movie many years ago and thought it was trashy and reasonably exciting. Seeing it again I still think it’s trashy and reasonably exciting but today I have a bit more tolerance for 80s trashy excess.
It’s not particularly original. There are striking similarities to Lucio Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984), made a few years earlier. I think Fulci’s is the better film. It also bears some very slight resemblance to the very underrated Australian movie Centrespread (1981), which is a much much better film. But The Running Man is entertaining and it’s recommended.
The Blu-Ray is barebones but looks good.