Mecha-Blog-Zilla's latest review: "The Running Man"

[TheDope]

Arnie runs!  And he's a man!

That makes the title of this PERFECT.

[Nakuyabi]

I agree with the author that really just about any action movie star would have sufficed for the lead role, though Arnold did do a great job belting out all the one-liners as usual. ("Where's Buzzsaw?" "Ah, he had to split.")

Richard Dawson as Damon Killian, however, really does seem to have been the absolute best guy for the part. His introductory spiel at the opening of the show was both hilarious and very telling about what kind of nation would have this kind of game show: "Fabulous prizes like trial by jury, suspended sentence; maybe even a full pardon! ...And speaking of prizes, you don't have to be a menace to society to win, because you folks in the audience, you'll get a chance too."

I've actually run the commentary tracks on the DVD for this film too, and while I don't know whether the reviewer's claim that this movie is some kind of critique of Reaganomics is accurate, I do know at least one of the guys commenting was obviously a flaming lefty, and the ACLU was allowed to put some Bush-bashing propaganda crap on the DVD as filler, so I suppose it might be. I'm not really seeing any of it, though. Of course, one thing that makes movies like this more watchable decades after they come out is not having politics in them that make them seem so dated. In view of all the "reality shows" on TV these days, The Running Man's depiction of a totalitarian society running a sadistic game show looks a bit exaggerated, but hardly all that far-fetched. All in all, it's still a fun film to watch these days.

[TheDope]

Thanks, Nakuyabi!