Post by ronnierocketago on Feb 6, 2009 7:30:33 GMT
THE RUNNING MAN (1987) - ***
"Get me the Justice Department, Entertainment Division."
Two recent actioneers I absolutely despised were THE CONDEMNED and DEATH RACE, both with the basic premise of a hero imprisoned in a kill-or-be-killed game show, and both which absolutely fail because they're numbskull enough to assume that they're intelligent and original by comparing America to Rome, remarkably boring action sequences, and the biggest crime of all for methinks....pointlessly convulted as mother fucking hell. I mean you have DEATH RACE with that nonsense about the hero's family being murdered by an assassin convict (which makes absolutely no sense at all) and CONDEMNED simply because of the rambling lengthy exposition to explain why Stone Cold Steve Austin is on death row in Central America, but somehow isn't a bad guy at all.
What the fuck do they think they are, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN?
Now THE RUNNING MAN beat both turds to the punch by several decades, and unlike them it's an enjoyable solid as hell B-movie with a streamlined economical storytelling narrative with both thrills and humor, and some decent political commentary as well. Plus, no bullshit in RUNNING MAN. For some reason, my generation that was heavily into star Arnold Schwarzenegger, we're big fans of RUNNING MAN particularly for some reason. I mean it's not as good as his TERMINATOR or CONAN or TOTAL RECALL or for that matter another Arnold 1987 release in PREDATOR, so do we all remember fondly this one?
I think it's the basic premise, Arnold forced to participate in the ridiculously super-popular and absurdly violent "The Running Man" game show, which seems to be a a crazy-ass mix of AMERICAN GLADIATORS, SMASH TV*, old school musical variety programs, Pro Wreslting, and THE PRICE IS RIGHT. Sure CONDEMNED and DEATH RACE were more inspired by modern low-budget and ugly reality television, but THE RUNNING MAN was a nice crystalization of everything we loved and absolutely hated about 1980s shlock television. You've got the mullets, the tacky glam fashions,the awfully cheesy stale pop music, the Reagan Decade's love for confusing commercialism with patriotism, and many "masculine" moments with unintentional homosexual connotations that produce some great memorable comedy.
I miss you 80s.
What I also dig though is how this futurisitc dictatorship America of 2019 is like a bastard marriage between the brutal impoverished police state of the Soviet Union, which is ruled by a self-centered and morbidly luxurious politburo this side of Wall Street or Hollywood. Also, the 1980s apparently never ended either. Thanks Rambo. I mean the great fear that many advocates of the Democratic Theory like myself have is that China would successfully bribe the ever-growing middle-class with BMWs and TVs in exchange for their freedoms. I mean why bother with worrying about such drabble like your Constitutional civil liberties or those never-ending wars overseas when you could watch AMERICAN IDOL?
Oh I'm sorry, I'm injecting my politics into an action movie review again. Apologies. I did like how after being framed for slaughtering civilians, when Arnold breaks out of prison he isn't interested at all in clearing his name. No he just wants to escape and disapear, screw the reality (I'm not into politics. I'm into survival!) but becomes active in the revolution after his poor expendable buddies get sent with him to play on "The Running Man." So there, squashing dissent can sometimes backfire with greater blowback consequences for a despot government.
Nah the two reasons that fans always cite with RUNNING MAN is first Richard Dawson. Now you gotta admit that casting the evil game show host with real-life MATCH GAME and FAMILY FEUD game show host Richard Dawson sounds creatively lazy, but it's actually a stroke of genius. Dawson never had much of an acting career outside of yelling "Survey Says...!" and HOGAN'S HEROES, so he gets a delicious rare opportunity to not just mock his popular TV persona, but also play a complete unredeeming dipshit evil asshole. In RUNNING he's untouchable, with an staff of heel-licking and well-abused assistants, and the movie even insinuates that as the MC of Soviet America's favorite TV program, he has incredible political clout with the regime.
That's right, a game show host is one of the most powerful people in our country. Only in America. His best scene is when he's having to describe GILLIGAN'S ISLAND to the President. "Yeah, the one with the boat."[/i]
Second, the "Stalkers." There is something creepily believable that each of these professional murderers would have a rabid army of fans, cheering them on as they slay innocent men and women (mostly dissidents) on a weekly basis. Now some of these themed-psychopaths are kinda bland, like Buzzsaw (chainsaw-wielding beefcake), Sub-Zero (martial arts master with hockey stick sword), Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura), Fireball (Jim Brown with flamethrower), and so on. Anyone notice that there are no women Stalkers? We should include that in the inevitable remake.
That said, there was one fucking great creation: Dynamo, the lightning-producing Opera Tenor wannabe!
Yeah I'm a fan of him. Go Dynamo!
Plus you get a great random moment when Ventura simply decides to quit when ordered to stalk Arnold, not out of a sudden change of conscience morality, but because he wants to kill him with his bare hands without a stupid gimmick or costume. You know, gladiator honor code. Dawson refuses, and Ventura walks off. Surprisingly, no retribution for this defiance. I mean if Arnold and Ventura had actually fought in RUNNING MAN (instead of a convenient plot-turning CGI simulation) and Arnold killed Ventura, the latter would have proudly accepted that a better warrior bested him.
Alright, enough of my macho-porn talk.
I know this whole review sounds like I really enjoyed RUNNING MAN, and I like it, but with such cool elements...so why does this film still feel very underwhelming? The problem might be that Andrew Davis, director of satisfying action cinema from ABOVE THE LAW to UNDER SIEGE to the Oscar-nominated THE FUGITIVE, was fired early during shooting by producer Rob Cohen...whoa whoa whoa! Yes, that same Rob Cohen, the hack auteur director who gave us XXX, that awful Bruce Lee biopic, STEALTH, and that last MUMMY picture which somehow makes Stephen Sommers look better in retrospect. So yes, Cohen knows action cinema obviously more than Mr. Davis, and his replacement is Paul Michael Glaser, who's most notable directorial achievement is
No offense to Glaser, who might be a decent guy and all, but the dude (and Cohen) has no feel at all for creating a exciting and taunt narrative like Davis at his prime could. Thus we could have gotten an awesomely goofy slick action picture for the ages, but instead we get an OK flick with some great incredible moments. Fuck you Cohen. Plus, Arnold's trademark deadpan corny one-liners aren't as strong here. Some are solid like castrating Buzzsaw with his own blade, and asked where that Stalker went: "He had to split." But then you get clunkers like "Killian, here's your Sub-zero, now plain zero![/i] That absolutely makes no logical sense at all. Umm Arnold, you know that the term Sub-Zero means below zero, thus your statement means that by slicing up that Stalker, you've raised him up to just zero, right? So how does that insult the villain?
I gotta say, Arnold in RUNNING MAN is a great heel, openly mocking and pissing off his blood-thirsty audience. Ric Flair doen't have shit on you.
Anyway, I wouldn't say RUNNING MAN was smart per say, but instead of self-admiring itself for making a lame observation like CONDEMNED or DEATH RACE, it at least sums its point concisely and quickly, along with a nice explosion. Also, RUNNING MAN did successfully predict that we would be ordering airfare tickets from the Internet by credit card about a decade-plus before the Internet. Well that hit the spot.
*=Someone needs to remake SMASH TV for like the PS3 or XBox or something. That arcade game was the shit back in the day.