- I'll say it: The Running Man's cast and crew must have resulted from a game of "Mad Libs." The film's director was Paul Michael Glaser, who played Starsky in Starsky and Hutch, and it was based on a novel by Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King. The cast includes multiple bodybuilders (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, Gus Rethwisch, Sven Ole-Thorsen), two of whom would later become state governors, a professional wrestler (Professor Toru Tanaka), a Dutch opera singer (Erland Van Lidth De Jeude), and former football legend Jim Brown. And former criminal/Reservoir Dog Eddie Bunker. Also, game show legend Richard Dawson. Not to mention Mick Fleetwood and Dweezil Zappa. And yes, Paula Abdul as choreographer. The only really normal cast members are María Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Marvin J. McIntyre, and Kurt Fuller, but with a song by Harold Faltermeyer and John Parr playing over the credits, can anything really be normal?
- Maybe it's ironic that I'm obsessing so much over the cast and crew, because The Running Man's main theme is that bad governments can use the fetishization of television shows to control a downtrodden populace. Sure, the starving citizens of 2017 Los Angeles are crammed into tent cities, but with programming like "The Hate Boat", "Pain: American Style", and ratings champion "The Running Man", who has time to worry about justice? We don't know much about Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) before his incarceration, but apparently he draws the line at firing upon an unarmed group of protestors. The group gets massacred anyway, incriminating footage is faked, and soon Richards finds himself doing forced labor with fellow inmates Laughlin (Kotto) and Weiss (McIntyre). They break out, but it doesn't take long for Richards's inspiring physique to capture the eye of TV mogul Damon Killian (Dawson).
- These days, it is easy to overlook the fact that Richard Dawson is easily the film's boldest and most rewarding casting choice. Known to millions of real-life TV viewers as the huggable host of Family Feud, Dawson is absolutely perfect as a manipulative superstar who grins his way through a show about gladiatorial combat. Said combat takes up most of the film's second half, with absurd theme warriors like the hockey-oriented Sub-Zero (Tanaka), chainsaw-wielding Buzzsaw (Rethwisch), and flame-throwing Fireball (Brown) pursuing our heroes. My personal favorite, however, is the electrifying Dynamo (De Jeude), who sings opera and sports a centurion helmet and Lite Brite vest while cruising around in a four-wheeler modified to look like KITT from Knight Rider. Whereas the other gladiators probably conform to somebody's idea of cool, Dynamo just doesn't give a shit. Sure, I'd like him more if he hadn't attempted to rape the film's heroine, Amber Mendez (Alonso), but at least she grants him an undignified death, delivered by a building's sprinkler system. You know, I read someplace that Stephen King had a cocaine problem back in the 80's.
- In one sense, The Running Man feels like a missed opportunity. With such an insane concept and cast, you could imagine someone like Paul Verhoeven or John McTiernan delivering a Network-level media satire masterpiece for the 80's. In the hands of the guy from Starsky and Hutch, you get an entertaining enough movie memorable primarily for its weirdness and crotch-sawing, head-exploding violence. Although this definitely falls into the "watchable" 25% of Schwarzenegger's filmography, he operates exclusively in his patented cheesy one-liner mode. Alonso, Kotto, and McIntyre are all fine, but only Dawson stands out as amazing. The film's effects and set design are good enough for their era, but are overshadowed by the fake TV show posters and background announcements. The cleverest part of the film also shows up for the closing credits, as the announcer (who voices Squidward from SpongeBob!) thanks the show's sponsors, including "Breakaway Paramilitary Uniforms, Ortopure Procreation Pill, and Cadre Cola". That level of self-awareness would have benefited the rest of the film, too.
