The Running Man – Review

Release Date – 12th November 2025, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 13 minutes, Director – Edgar Wright

To afford a better life for his wife (Jayme Lawrence) and ill daughter, Ben Richards (Glen Powell) enters The Running Man, a show where he must survive a month while trained hunters and the world are after him.

Despite the title The Running Man is far from Edgar Wright’s most fast paced film. It’s also a film that seems to acknowledge when it’s run out of steam. Moving into a quick succession of sequences as if the film starts rattling off its ending in montage form so as not to go on any longer, and as the central chase nears its conclusion.

The chase at hand is The Running Man competition, where three runners must evade being killed by trained hunters, or the public, over the course of a month. If they succeed they earn a billion new dollars – the currency in this dystopian future, which we see much more of compared to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger starring adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name (published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman). The money is exactly what Ben Richards (Glen Powell) needs, fired from his job for reporting a safety violation after a major incident and wanting to move his wife (a largely unseen Jayme Lawrence) and ill daughter to a better place, and pay for medicine.

As the chase unfolds Wright certainly restrains his trademark style of quick-cuts and snappy-editing, yet there are still glimpses of the director’s style still present here, including some fun needle drops. Tension rises during multiple close calls with the hunters, especially as Ben thinks that he’s safe at least for a couple of hours. The more Wright allows the camera to follow the action, or at least things move around the multiple layers of a building, the more tension rises. Two particular sequences show off in-the-moment plans and a more layered set of traps, led by an entertaining Michael Cera, with equally as much enjoyment.

The more the hunt goes on, presented by an ominous Colman Domingo, the more Ben starts to encounter faces who suggest that there’s more to the behind-the-scenes of the show than viewers, and participants, are being told about. It’s this that the second half, particularly the third act, deals with more as things start to have to move more towards an ending that’s about more than whether the central figure, well-performed by Powell taking on a more serious-edged leading action role still with some of his naturally playful humour, will survive to the end. While not all of these beats entirely click as they become much more of a core focus of the narrative, largely feeling like they push the run-time – Emilia Jones comes in as a hostage brought into the game by Ben and is on-screen for longer than her underwritten character initially suggests.

Yet, there are still fun details when action kicks off, even in the climactic stages where fights are much more upfront and seemingly personal as the run-time starts to be felt. While Wright has certainly made more of a studio film than what might be more widely recognised as an Edgar Wright film that’s no bad thing. The visual look of the world certainly has a good deal to like and be caught in, even in the confines of a near-future dystopia that seems to be run by the controllers of an authoritarian TV network.

As Powell’s increasingly determined underdog, and a set of floating cameras alongside Wright’s, runs through the various landscapes on offer there’s a good deal to enjoy, especially when the action kicks in, sometimes with a good needle drop. Things might feel overlong as the plot starts to wind in setting things up for its conclusion, but there’s no denying the push of Ben’s efforts to survive, and the Running Man viewers rallying calls of Richards Lives!

The Running Man appears to admit that it runs out of steam as its plot starts to wind, but there’s still an enjoyable hit with the action as the camera tracks Glen Powell’s entertaining lead through different floors and settings, although not quite as fast-paced as you’d expect from Wright.