Review of The Running Man (1987) by Paul B — 25 Jul 2012

"I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god-damn spine! ".

I remember this being good, not just good but awesome, having rewatched it for the first time in years I found that it is in fact cheap, nasty crap. It's a shoe string budget and it shows through with the secondary characters. Yaphet Kotto is great like always, for the most part so is Arnie despite him being on autopilot throughout and Jesse Ventura is funny. I like the movie up to the point where the game starts but after that the budget limits the films reach, nothing is able to reach it's full potential and the plot flit back and forth but none of it really gets interesting. Really the only major flaw other than a lack of budget is when Arnie isn't on screen you don't care and when he is it's not enough. Nothing about this takes itself too serious which is for the best and it did make me want to read the short story it's based on but this is one best left in the 80's.