The Running Man

I went to see the movie because of reviews from a few people whose opinions I trust (and that’s also the goal of the site—to talk about the newest films). When the movie started, I thought it was going to be a film with a message (which it does have), but not at the level I expected, or at least not the kind of message I thought the film was aiming for. Overall, I’m happy to say I was wrong, and I really enjoyed it. I expected a lot of action, and there actually wasn’t that much. I expected boredom in the parts where characters are supposed to hide, and instead, you don’t have to wait long before something happens. The film moves quickly from one segment to the next, and I was pulled into it, putting aside the question of whether what’s happening makes sense or not. That’s what created a unique cinematic experience for me. It’s hard to explain this need in recent years for a movie to simply be fun—and that’s a bit strange considering its subject matter. A hard-working man who can’t find a job anywhere joins a reality show (in the style of The Hunger Games, with a bit of Squid Game), where anyone who survives 30 days wins one billion dollars. The catch is that usually no one survives, because they end up dying—but their family receives a lot of money. Before getting into our protagonist and whether he succeeds or not (spoilers), I want to linger on this a bit more. Glen Powell takes on the lead role, and I can definitely believe him as the man angry at the world for what was done to him. The side of him exposing corruption and injustice done to him works a bit less for me. This is not an Oscar movie (maybe only in terms of stunts), and that’s exactly what’s good about it. The level of bullshit in the film is relatively low, in my opinion. The reality competition itself isn’t completely insane—and hopefully we’ll never reach something like that—but within the internal logic of the world, it works. All in all, I recommend seeing it in theaters. In my opinion, it’s an experience (just note that there’s quite a bit of violence in this movie).