‘The Running Man’ Review: Trips and Stumbles

Edgar Wright’s last outing was a plain and simple stinker. Last Night in Soho is an overly pastiche and lifeless film without any identity of its own, which relies on nostalgia, yet its themes boil down to “nostalgia is bad and so are men, but don’t worry, ladies, I’m one of the good ones.” That being said, The Running Man looked to be a return to form for Wright, an action-comedy that would combine his quick wit with explosive chaos. Unfortunately, The Running Man cannot find its legs and barely walks. Read our full review of The Running Man below.

The Running Man is based on the Stephen King book of the same name, published under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman in 1982. King himself said of the Bachman books that they were darker and grimmer than his own, and that’s exactly how I’d describe the tone of The Running Man. The book follows Ben Richards, a spiteful man, angry at the world and at his situation and at himself, in a dystopian United States of America in the year 2025 (a little too prescient, but then again it was published in the Reagan era). America is a totalitarian police-state where capitalism has destroyed the economy and created unprecedented levels of inequality and wealth disparity. The government and the state-controlled Games Network work in tandem to distract and pacify its citizens with violent game shows screened on their FreeVees that offer them a chance to win big and make it out of poverty. 

The unemployed and blacklisted Ben Richards needs money – and needs it badly – for his 18-month-old daughter suffering from pneumonia. His wife, Sheila, has turned to prostitution. So, he sets out for the games. Expecting to be selected for a low-level game where he can win a few hundred New Dollars to treat his daughter, Richards instead finds himself competing in the most dangerous game show for a chance to win New$1B. Richards must survive for 30 days while being hunted not only by the cops and the elite team of Hunters led by the elusive Evan McCone, a man described as “a direct descendant of J. Edgar Hoover and Heinrich Himmler”, but also by the entire population of the United States that wants to see him brutalized for their entertainment. 

Though fast-paced and extremely thrilling, The Running Man is a very bleak book that, above all, wants to drive home the inhumanity of this decrepit world. In a story filled to the brim with pieces of shit, our protagonist Ben Richards is almost chief among them–racist, perverted, and very hard to love. And yet, heroism and humanity find ways to seep through, albeit in the signature morosely Bachman fashion. 

That is the book. Conversely, Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, though quite faithful in premise, makes strides but stumbles far more. The film’s Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is also unemployed and blacklisted from work, though this is framed as due to noble insubordination, and desperately in need of money to treat his and Sheila’s (Jayme Lawson) infant daughter. Powell’s Richards is your more typical all-American action hero – apt casting as that was Wright’s intent – in contrast to Bachman’s combustible, and far more compelling, protagonist. Through no fault of Glen Powell, of whom I am a foremost supporter, I found it impossible to connect with the film’s Richards, whereas I could even with the book’s more vitriolic counterpart. 

The story’s edge is already lost with these changes, and the bitter bleakness is replaced by a dynamic energy akin to the game show concept and in line with Wright’s body of work. Unlike Wright’s body of work, however, the energy, wit, and action, while not missing, feel faint and noncommittal. Contrary to what the title may suggest, the film crawls for most of its runtime and in those rare action sequences where I felt Wright would find his element and speed through the finish line (I apologize for all these running puns, and no, this will not be the last one!), I was constantly left wanting more. 

Tonally, the film tries to find ways to be more like its source material but constantly trips over itself due to Wright’s style, which wouldn’t be as much of an issue if it actually locked in one way or the other, though it neither finds its footing in Bachman’s grittiness nor in Wright’s wittiness. The world Wright creates feels far too lively for the anger and abrasive grit of this story. Poverty and state repression and violence feel more like set dressing rather than the suffocating nature of this fictional United States, even when trying to display the dystopic reality. Revolutionary ideas and iconography are satirized and portrayed in typical Hollywood fashion, even while trying to embody the heavy-handed anti-capitalist messaging of the source material. 

The novel is constantly on the move and consistently fast paced but finds time to explore its array of side characters exceptionally well, but Wright sprints past them, leaving them in the dust. Katy O’Brian’s Laughlin fits very well in this version of the story, but has trailer-length screentime and zero interiority. Michael Cera’s Elton and Daniel Ezra’s Bradley have more to work with, but the biggest issue with all of these characters is how insignificant they feel. Even in the book, these side characters have very few moments at the forefront; however, their short presence is felt in the story after the fact. The film makes them and their relationship with Richards meaningless. 

The Running Man has a star-studded cast (I didn’t even get to talk about how much fun Colman Domingo is having here, or how cool Lee Pace is as state-sanctioned serial killer Evan McCone), one of my favorite Stephen King novels as source material, and an experienced and– and once thought capable–director at its helm, so what went wrong? It’s another miss from Edgar Wright who seems unable to decide how to approach this adaptation. This review may come off as overly negative, but The Running Man is fine enough. It’s certainly not a bad film, but knowing what Edgar Wright is capable of, it feels more like a missed opportunity than anything else. 

The Running Man stars Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Jayme Lawson, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, and Colman Domingo and is directed by Edgar Wright. The film was released in theaters on November 14th, 2025.  

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