... Whilst not exactly identical to his novel The Running Man (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman and published in 1982), the likes of Big Brother, Shipwrecked and any other hopeless reality television programme you care to mention certainly conforms to his future society where the masses ... Read review
In this action thriller based on an early story by Stephen King, Los Angeles in the year ... more
2017 has become a police state in the wake of the global economy's total collapse. All forms of entertainment are government controlled, and the most popular show ...
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In this action thriller based on an early story by Stephen King, Los Angeles in the year ... more
2017 has become a police state in the wake of the global economy's total collapse. All forms of entertainment are government controlled, and the most popular show ...
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Gilbert Tuhabonye is a survivor. As a high school student in the African nation of Burundi ... more
his dreams were of becoming a champion runner and Olympic athlete. These dreams were cruelly interrupted when the centuries-old battle between the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes found its way to his school. Fuelled by hatred the Hutus forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a small room and used machetes to slash most of them to death. The unfortunate ones who survived were doused with gasoline and set on fire. Gilbert lay under the bodies of his smouldering classmates for an agonising and terrifying eight hoursDuring this terrible ordeal when almost all hope was lost there was one thing that gave this remarkable young man the strength to survive - God's voice which told him he would live through this ordeal. Gilbert was the only survivor of this terrible atrocity and he thanks his enduring faith in God for his survival. Today Gilbert has re-built his life and is following his dream. He now lives in the USA and is a world-class athlete and running coach using his survival instincts to spur him on in his goal to qualify for the 2008 Olympic summer games. This gripping and emotional book brings home not only the horror of the events that took place in Africa but how even after such trauma an existence can be rebuilt and forgiveness can transform a life.
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Every night the whole nation watches the ultimate live game show on TV as the contestants ... more
try to beat annihilation at the hands of the hunters in order to win the billion dollar jackpot. And now there is a new contestant the latest "Running Man" staking his life while a nation watches.
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The year is 2017. America has become a police state and its citizens are mollified with a ... more
steady diet of violent television shows, where convicts try to survive an invariably lethal obstacle course. Arnie plays a prison escapee and sometime freedom fighter who, recaptured, finds himself running for his life on the show.
Production Year: 1979 - Science Fiction - Director: Ridley Scott - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright
Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Advantages: Enjoyable action, decent violence, gore and Arnie one-liners. Disadvantages: Missing the intelligence of the source novel making it fairly one-dimesional.
THE RUNNING MAN
Stephen King, you could presume, has a certain degree of foresight. Whilst not exactly identical to his novel The Running Man (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman and published in 1982), the likes of Big Brother, Shipwrecked and any other hopeless reality television programme you care to mention certainly conforms to his future society where the masses lap up reality game shows. Yet the game shows in King's world ... ...on offer, making it all the more intriguing for the bloodthirsty audiences of the future to enjoy. Imagine being treated to the likes of watching some nobody looking for their 15 minutes of fame "Climbing for Dollars", before they slip and fall into a pit of wild dogs and are torn to shreds by Mutley and Co. for being an utterly miserable failure. Joy! Alas, the pillars of society haven't crumbled enough to allow for such a tele-visual ... more
THE RUNNING MAN
Stephen King, you could presume, has a certain degree of foresight. Whilst not exactly identical to his novel The Running Man (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman and published in 1982), the likes of Big Brother, Shipwrecked and any other hopeless reality television programme you care to mention certainly conforms to his future society where the masses lap up reality game shows. Yet the game shows in King's world are often deadly to the contestants despite the big money prizes on offer, making it all the more intriguing for the bloodthirsty audiences of the future to enjoy. Imagine being treated to the likes of watching some nobody looking for their 15 minutes of fame "Climbing for Dollars", before they slip and fall into a pit of wild dogs and are torn to shreds by Mutley and Co. for being an utterly miserable failure. Joy! Alas, the pillars of society haven't crumbled enough to allow for such a tele-visual treat to pass, so in the meantime we'll just have to stick with watching the 1987 film adaptation starring Arnold Schwarznegger running around in a yellow leotard instead!
Wrongly convicted for a massacre of food rioters in Bakersfield and following his recapture after an audacious prison escape, Ben Richards (Arnie) is spotted by egomaniac game show host Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) as a talent for the countries leading ratings winner - The Running Man. Placed in a self-contained environment divided into sectors, the contestants - usually criminals offered the chance of a reprieve if they manage to survive - are hunted through the playing arena by 'stalkers' charged to dispose of the contestants in uber-violent ways conducive to promoting the watching audiences satisfaction. Forced to participate in the public execution show against his will and finding that not everything is as it seems to the public's perception, Ben has to survive the 'stalkers' hunting him down and the programme's other deceptions in order to escape with his life intact.
The Running Man is your typical sci-fi popcorn claptrap that the eighties and early nineties were highly effective at churning out (see anything starring Rutger Hauer). Whilst it features the essence of King's original parody of the media and public perception, it's a theme that's handled about as deftly as a quick kick to the bollocks. Instead, it seems like someone threw a bomb at the script and gave the detonator to a monkey, resulting in little more than simplistic action thriller bobbins being pieced together from the resulting destruction. If you were expecting some cerebral sci-fi concepts to take precedence based on the source novel, you'll be bitterly disappointed when you find the film is actually quite slim, filled with Arnie's cheesy one-liners, some terrible eighties production values and various degrees of hyper-violence ranging from exploding heads to the splicing of some ones innards with a chainsaw.
But that's really where the joy of The Running Man lies. Everyone knows what to expect in an action-flick from the world's most famous Austrian, and this is pretty much a vehicle for Arnie with all semblance of King's intelligent framing removed. Catchphrases such as "I'll be back" ("only in a re-run", retorts Killian) delivered in monochrome fashion, Sven Ole-Thorsen, an unlikely female companion (Maria Conchita Alonso), hilarious Hawaiian shirts, some latent homo-erotic machismo (just look at the tight leotards) and Arnie kicking arse against an assortment of big-guys is all present and correct. Indeed, the range of inventive stalkers on show gives The Running Man a distinct edge. From the ice-hockey stick wielding Sub-Zero, to the chainsaw wielding Buzzsaw, to Jesse Ventura's fantastic hairpiece as Captain Freedom; it makes for some enthralling computer game styled encounters which often end in grizzly fashion followed by a timeless Arnie one-liner. Barbed wire neck-breakage ("what a pain in the neck") and impalement on spikes are the order of the day here and the action is plentiful, frantic and fun throughout. After all, this is what Arnie does best!
If the stalkers are despicably violent then Richard Dawson seems to be having a great time being just plain old despicable. Spoofing his game show host background slightly, his smarmy studio audience revelling is a delight. The 'Come On Down' aspect as audience members guess which stalker is going to make the next kill, whilst Killian hands out Running Man board games as prizes, is the perfect antithesis to Arnie's begotten hero getting his arse whooped in the desolate game zone. It's an excellent contrast and Dawson makes for one of Arnie's most memorable villains - especially as he seemingly out-quips the muscle-bound behemoth throughout.
Alas, while this is all well and good, compared to the likes of Predator, The Terminator and Total Recall (Arnie flicks where the action didn't thoroughly overwhelm the sci-fi concepts) there's certainly that little hint of real quality missing from The Running Man. Perhaps it's due to the incredibly dated look. For a film attempting to predict the future, it becomes simply far too humorous to take a future so stuck in the eighties seriously. Perhaps it's the fault of director Paul Michael Glaser; Starsky is certainly no Cameron, McTierrnan or bonkers mad Verhoeven when it comes to giving a little bit of substance to the much maligned Arnie style. Whilst a final monologue from Killian regarding the viewing habits of Americans just about touches on some interesting thematic ideas, it's simply too little too late. Perhaps when all is said and done, despite the hyper-violence, despite the gore-laden deaths and despite Arnie quipping his way through the film, it's all just a little too bland and samey to be anything more than a bog-standard action flick.
Still, saying that, you're not going to see an operatic tenor with electrodes up his arse anywhere else. Or, for that matter, Mick Fleetwood leading a rebellion of freedom fighters against the tyranny of the television shows broadcaster - which is like totally bizarre! It's not an instant Arnie classic, but in moments like this, sitting alongside Ventura's comedy hairpiece and Arnie's genuine likeability, it still makes for a rather enjoyable couple of hours. And it's infinitely more entertaining than watching a bunch of deranged drongos on E4 do nothing more than bully each other pathetically of an evening! It can only be a matter of time until "Climbing for Dollars" becomes a reality for these idiots...
Overall - Although certainly showing its age The Running Man does what Arnie does best. Subtle this is not and ultimately fairly one-dimensional, but that's half the fun!
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
Screenplay: Stephen E. de Souza
Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger ... Ben Richards Maria Conchita Alonso ... Amber Mendez Yaphet Kotto ... William Laughlin Jim Brown ... Fireball Jesse Ventura ... Captain Freedom Erland van Lidth ... Dynamo (as Erland Van Lidth) Marvin J. McIntyre ... Harold Weiss Gus Rethwisch ... Buzzsaw (as Bernard Gus Rethwisch) Professor Toru Tanaka ... Subzero Mick Fleetwood ... Mic Dweezil Zappa ... Stevie Richard Dawson ... Damon Killian Karen Leigh Hopkins ... Brenda
Rating: 18 (Language, violence and some nasty, but well conceived, death scenes. No nudity though, which is disappointing!!)
Advantages: Some of Arnie's memorable one-liners Disadvantages: Looks so cheap it's laughable
...Running Time: 101 Minutes
THE BACKGROUND:
In the tradition of 1980s super action hero, the bloke who was Starsky out of 'Starsky and Hutch' (I kid you not) brings you Arnie in 'The Running Man'. Amazing to think: the uberman of mindless action movies in an adaption of a Stephen King story and a good one at that! The Running Man loses its' Kingesque ending - after all it is an Arnie movie (hint: the goodies prevail, obviously), but retains the theme ... ...America. In order to keep the people distracted, the television networks run violent game shows such as 'Climbing for Dollars' - where a man attempts to ascend a rope pursued by rottweillers whilst snatching as much cash as he can. The biggest show of the lot is 'The Running Man': a show where convicted criminals (the 'runners') have to cross several city blocks chased by psychotic killers (the 'stalkers'). Add into the mix a bunch of Pans People ...
chunlex 04.12.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Running Man (DVD)
Advantages: Amusing in places Disadvantages: Looks dated and cheap
...through my old video collection the other day looking for something to watch I came across this early Arnie classic and thought I would give it another viewing.
Set in the year 2019 the economy has collapsed and people’s standard of living has fallen through the floor, America is now a police state and increasingly violent TV programmes are used by the state to control the population and keep them subdued. The number one TV show is The Running Man, ... ...persona and weapons to match. The prize for the contestants is their freedom however if they fail they will pay with their life. The action is beamed to a studio audience and outside to the general population with the public placing bets on which stalker will deliver the next kill. With the advance of reality TV I reckon that this type of game show will be on air a lot sooner than 2019 it the current trend of breaking down social taboos continues.
...
atticusuk 27.07.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Running Man (DVD)
The Running Man is a movie starring Arnold Schwarzennegar adapted from a Stephen King short story. Movie adaptations of Stephen King novels have generally, it has to be said, been pretty awful, but at the same time, othres have resulted in some of the finest movies ever made. I give you The Shawshank Redmeption and The Green Mile as two examples of the latter. Whilst The Running Man should never be, and probably will never be again mentioned in the ... ...not one of the worst adaptations I have seen. Equally its not one of the best either. The plot is simple but intriguing and should say something to you about the state of the world as we have it today. Arnold Schwarzennegar plays Ben Richards - a cop wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of women and chidren. He didn't do it, but even so he is imprisoned for it but is given the chance for freedom. You see, in this vision of Earth in the future, there ...
wampyrii 27.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Running Man (DVD)
Advantages: great entertaining movie Disadvantages: none...unless you don't like blood
...in late 1987 and followed the survival of contestants of a futuristic television program, very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Stephen King.
**BRIEF PLOT**
It's the year 2017 and the world is in ruin. The economy has collapsed and people are controlled by a police state, there every move being monitored by the government.
The most popular activity for the people is watching the very aggressive game shows, which include dogs ... ...popular show is The Running Man, which is hosted by Damon Killian, (played by Richard Dawson), this show is a simple format, set a criminal (or a 'runner') loose on the derelict streets of old LA and then send several 'Stalkers' to kill them.. much to the pleasure of the watching audience, who enjoy betting on who will survive.
Meanwhile, whilst on patrol, a helicopter gunship pilot, Ben Richards, (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), refuses an order ...
blissman70 02.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Running Man (DVD)
Advantages: Well written, Arnie's timing Disadvantages: Strange
The second film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger to be released in 1987 was title The Running Man, and was loosely based on the novel of the same name, penned by Stephen King. Arnie's first movie that year was Predator, and met with great critical and commercial success. The Running Man attempted a more futuristic approach, aiming at a sci-fi action adventure.
The Plot
In the year 2017, the police control the state, and the government create a few ... ...called The Running Man, where convicted criminals fight each other for survival, hosted by Richard Dawson.
Ben Richards is a wrongly convicted mass murderer, and finds himself plunged into the limelight as the latest criminal on The Running Man. He must survive the game show in order to emerge the other side to clear his name.
The Cast and Performances
Arnie plays the fall guy very well, with his ability to fill his expression with disbelief and ...
pmcds 12.06.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Running Man (DVD)
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Advantages: Great cars, Humour and laughter al the way. Disadvantages: only 58 mins long, I want more.
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And a crazy down hill ski jump attempt on a Skidoo, never been done before, by who else but the fearless, part man, part machine simply known as the STIG.
Fun, Frolics and Laughs abound in this great winter special.
DVD Extra's include-
Hilarious outtakes :- very funny but only last a few minutes.
The Stig :- a bit of insight into the man and how he prepares and trains himself for some of the gruelling tests that the team set for him.
Subtitles available.
Run time:- a very short 58 minutes.
DVD Released June 2006 and is readily available from most good outlets for about £14.00 ...
Advantages: Enjoyable action, good cast, some amusing lines. Disadvantages: Never really surprises, some poor sets and effects.
Legrand (THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, LE MANS) is adequate but not overly memorable with perhaps the exception of the main title theme.
Overall this is a film I enjoyed, there is not really any doubt where it is heading but it?s an enjoyable journey with a few tense moments, some clever lines with a pleasing and satisfactory outcome.
DVD Technical Details (Region 2)
Ratio: Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic.
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital, 2.0 Dolby Surround
Languages: English, French and Italian
Subtiles: English, French, Italian, Dutch and Arabic
Run Time: 143 minutes.
DVD Extras
Vintage Making-of Featurette ?The Man Who Makes the Difference? ? showing the work of John M. Stephens, second unit cinematographer.
Trailer Gallery ? Posters and trailers for ?Bad Day at Black Rock?, ?Giant? and ?Ice Station Zebra? ...
Advantages: No Hollywood nonsense... Disadvantages: Can leave you disturbed
the believability and success of the film. I was left feeling both envigorated by the plot and the sexuality of the film seduces you and the Climactic ending leaves you both enthralled and deeply disturbed......
** A Stellar Cast**
Edward Woodward....(Sergaent Howie)
Christopher Lee........ (Lord SummerIsle)
Diane Cilento..............(Miss Rose)
Britt Eckland.................(Willow)
Director: Robin Hardy
Released : December 1973
Running Time :Approx 85mins
This DVD has not extras to speak off.
**Additional Info**
The "Wicker Man" is derived from an Ancient Pagan Ritual and is still enacted thrughout the U.K on May-Day. It's origins are supposed to go back as long ago as the time of Julius Caesar.
The Wicker Man is supposed to represent the Pagan god of the Sun and is responsible for the plentiful harvest. The failure ...
Set in 2019, an ex-cop, framed and convicted of mass slaughter, must struggle against time in a popular game show where convicted felons race for their lives in decimated Los Angeles, in the faint hope of a pardon.
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
UCA; CINRAM LOGISTICS (SWINDON)
Release date
19/08/2002
No of Discs
1
Catalogue No
078 230 2
Barcode
0044007823026
Languages
Main Language
English
Technical information
Aspect Ratio
16:9 Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround English
Professional reviews
Review
"...A high-energy futuristic science-fiction thriller..." (Los Angeles Times, p.C10, 13/11/1987)
"...Raffish....Dawson steals the movie..." (New York Times, p.C10, 13/11/1987)
DVD Description
Set in 2019, an ex-cop framed and convicted of mass slaughter, becomes a contestant on the most popular game show in which convicted felons race for their lives in decimated L.A. in hopes of a pardon. Adapted from a Stephen King novel.
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