For the first week of April, I selected The Running Man (1987) as my movie. This is a movie I had seen with my dad countless times as a kid, he adored cheesy action packed films like this. I remember we owned it both on blu-ray and DVD, and I’m sure he even had it on VHS in the 1990s. This is a fun movie, albeit not that great of a movie. But my girlfriend and I still had a great time watching it. 

The film takes place in the far far future of 2027 (I know, unbelievably far for someone in the 1980s to even perceive) and features Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards aka THE RUNNING MAN. The world has gone to chaos, capitalism has ruined the everyday lives of the citizens and the police force must keep them in check. Ben Richards is one of these cops. In the opening scene, we see him disobeying orders as he is told to open fire on a group of rioters that is mostly made up of unarmed women and children. 

For this, he is arrested and labeled as “The Butcher of Bakersfield.” He then escapes from prison, and subsequently while on the run, is re-arrested and given an ultimatum: Star in the hit TV show RUNNING MAN where criminals fight for their lives and freedom, or his friends will be forced to participate in the death match arena style show. They pull a trick on him, however, and his two friends are forced into the competition with him, sadly both dying during the show. Rest in peace Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Weiss (Marvin J. McIntyre).

Overall, this movie is a classic and enjoyable 80s action film. The set and props are a great sign of the times, that in many ways don’t hold up nowadays, but also shine with the brilliance of 1980s filmmaking. It’s through-the-roof cheesy in all the right ways, full of cringe-inducing one liners that although you’re cringing at, you also find yourself smiling and laughing at. For instance, when he fights and kills Buzzsaw (Gus Rethwisch) by cutting him in half with a chainsaw, Amber (Maria Conchita Alonso) asks him “What happened to Buzzsaw?” to which Ben replies “He had to split.” I know this movie came out an entire decade before Arnold ever played Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin (1997) but the one-liners gave me such a “Time to chill” kind of vibe upon rewatching this one. 

Speaking of Amber, I want to take a moment to discuss her characterization, Ben breaks into her apartment while running from the police after he escapes from prison, and rightfully so she is afraid and on edge. She then helps cause his re-arrest as he’s essentially kidnapped her into helping him leave the country. They think that she was aiding and abetting him, and she ends up in the game of Running Man with him. The entire time she’s in the game for the first ¾ of the movie, she is obnoxious, annoying, running or freezing, and screaming at every little thing going on around her. Then out of nowhere, towards the end of the movie, she has the original footage of Ben disobeying the orders that set the whole movie off. The unedited version that wasn’t propagandized by the evil ruling class. For the last 10-15 minutes of the movie, she’s kind of a badass and shows no fear. It was such a drastic 180 of her character that I was honestly left with my head swiveling trying to process it. And of course, at the end, she and Ben kiss right before the cut to credits. Because the hero always gets the girl.

In the above image, we have a security guard, Amber (center) and Damon Killian (Richard Dawson). Quite a name for a television host of a TV show that sets out to murder its contestants on live TV… Part of the charm and simultaneous over-the-top groaning this movie puts you through. It’s not that I disliked it, I think that now, in the year 2026, these kinds of tropes have been done to death. And I fully understand it’s because of movies like this existing in the era that they did, but it makes for a semi-difficult rewatch in my opinion. Anyway, Killian, as he’s referred to in the movie, is in on it all. As the game of Running Man progresses, Ben and Amber stumble across a back room with last year’s winners’ charred corpses in it. No one who has “won” The Running Man television show has actually gotten a beachside condo in Hawaii as promised when you enter the competition. Instead, they are taken out back and sent to slaughter like the animals that they are perceived to be. 

After Ben and Amber “escape” through a backhatch in the game, they reconvene with the underground group that Laughlin and Weiss were working with to hijack the broadcast and air the real footage of the dead winners and Ben disobeying orders to fire on unarmed citizens. They then come back to the studio through the front door, kill a bunch of henchmen/security guards, and ultimately murder Killian on live tv.

The ending for this action packed fun movie is kind of lackluster, because the world that they set up is interesting and has depth to it outside of the game itself, but we only see the movie from Ben’s perspective, so yes, one problem with the game and his personal retribution was dealt with, but the ramifications for the rest of the dystopian society are left unanswered. Clearly there is a power imbalance between the classes of people, and we’re left to wonder what happens to the world at large. 

Despite my issues with this movie and the tone of my review, I did actually have a good time watching this movie. My girlfriend who had never seen it before also enjoyed it. Overall, if you’re debating between this one and the “remake” (if it can be called that since the entire concept is different at its core) I would personally recommend this one. The last thing I’ll say that I commented on while watching is for a movie called The Running Man, Arnold sure does a lot of jogging…

-3 mallards/ 5

-Seann

The Guard (2011) is a movie that I had never heard of before this week, despite being a big fan of many of Don Cheadle’s other roles, such as in Ocean’s Eleven (2011) and Miles Ahead (2015). I think the reason I hadn’t heard of this one is because it is an independent Irish film. I’ll admit, despite the vast majority of dialogue in this film being in English, I found myself quickly turning the captions on to try to understand what was being said. Cheadle is a fish out of water FBI agent, which he portrays brilliantly, and doesn’t even attempt to develop any sort of Irish mannerisms or speech. This is a good move. 

For what is essentially a buddy cop movie, this film is actually quite deep. While the mystery or, honestly, straightforward crime they’re trying to thwart is not particularly enigmatic, it has enough suspense to drive the plot along. Though this is really a character study of two men from vastly different walks of life learning to work together, ultimately the goal is to figure out how to stop the bad guys. This is one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a long time, and much of that is due to the acting chops and delivery of the main guy, Brendan Gleeson. He portrays a lovable oaf with a heart of gold, who is incidentally not that lovable, not really an oaf, and doesn’t really have a heart of gold. He’s a multifaceted character, to say the least. Don Cheadle plays the straight man, who works steadfastly within the rules to accomplish his aims, while simultaneously trying to wrangle Sergeant Doyle, the garda played by Gleeson.

What makes this film so funny is not the plot, script, or acting (although all of these are crafted masterfully), but the authenticity of it. A danger when making fiction centered on a wacky or somehow out-of-the-norm character is to make the character into a caricature – that is, to make them so ridiculous so as to be unbelievable. This is what Holmes and Watson (2018) fell victim to, and why it was not funny in the least. Sergeant Boyle, while being a boorish man of questionable ethics, is also incredibly human. He feels like a real person, and despite the bad things he does, we pull for him to succeed. Why do we pull for him? The answer is a classic one: he does it for the right reasons. Wendell (Cheadle’s character) also does it for the right reasons, as we find out, and so we ultimately pull for them. The antagonists are also funny, though they come much closer to approaching the caricature line, particularly Sheehy. They’re on screen so infrequently that it isn’t really a distraction or hindrance to the overall enjoyment, so I can let this slide. 

Even the side characters, like the ‘mad lad’ young kid, the wife of the slain officer, and the two ladies are endearing characters in their own way. They’re well-written, funny, consistent, and memorable in the scenes in which they do showup. Boyle’s mother is a great character, and shows us some of where Boyle gets his fiery personality from. Overall, each character is a treat in their own way, and none of them seem wacky for the sake of wackiness or so far outside the norm that they’re not believable. While the cast is a bit on the small side, the short runtime (94 minutes, including credits) is just long enough to give everyone a scene or two in which to shine. 

In addition to the positive characterization and plot, the cinematography is great as well. Naturally, this was shot on location in Ireland, so there are great landscape, seascape, and otherwise rustic pastoral sets. The weather is very dreary, which is typical, and fits the overall mood of the town in which the action takes place. The subtle difference of Wendel’s clothing when compared to the rest of the cast further cements his status as an outsider. There’s a hilarious sequence in which he gets soundly ignored while trying to canvas the city, and afterwards Boyle asks him if he juggles, implying he’s dressed like a clown. These small details emerge throughout a second viewing of the film, displaying an impressive amount of thought that went into each scene. 

I’ll speak briefly about one potential negative of this film – the stakes are not very high. We want Boyle and Wendell to succeed, not because we want the bad guys’ evil mastermind plan to be stopped, but because we like Boyle and Wendell’s characters so much. If they had fumbled at the end and the evil plan had gone through, not much would really have changed about the movie. There are some additional stakes, as the murder of Boyle’s first-day-on-the-job apprentice is made apparent, but these pale in comparison to the audience’s capacity for hoping good things happen to the two main guys. The other thing that’s not entirely explained is how and why the sack of guns came to be in the middle of a field on the outskirts of town. Perhaps some deus ex machina there, but again, the film is so entertaining that I’m more than willing to let it slide. 

Overall, there’s really very little bad to say about this film and a lot to say that is good. From my understanding this film won a couple of awards, which are rightly deserved. The budget was roughly $6million, and it made over $20million at the box office, which is impressive for an independent film from a small-ish country, not known for its cinematic output. This is, in fact, the highest-grossing Irish film of all time (at the time of writing), and I must say it’s the best one that I’ve seen. I’m not going to give this movie a 5, but it’s difficult for me to articulate why. When thinking about ways in which I would improve the film, they’re all very minor, and some of them come down just to aesthetic or stylistic preferences. This film could have stood to be maybe ten minutes longer. I think this is a great date night movie, a great movie to watch while drinking with some buddies, a great plane movie, a great driving movie. Really, it’s just an enjoyable experience all around, regardless of context.

The Guard (2011) has an IMDB score of 7.3/10, a Letterboxd score of 3.7/5, and a remarkable Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 94%. I personally think this could go anywhere between 3.5-4.5 depending on your personal sense of humor and tastes. This falls pretty squarely in my pseudo-cerebral wheelhouse of dark humor, so I will give The Guard (2011)

-4.5 mallards/5

-Maxwell