The Running Man
A wrongly-convicted man must try to survive a public execution gauntlet staged as a TV game show.
- Director:Paul Michael Glaser
- Genre:Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Cast
Arnold Schwarzenegger : Ben Richards
Maria Conchita Alonso : Amber Mendez
Yaphet Kotto : William Laughlin
Jim Brown : Fireball
Jesse Ventura : Captain Freedom
In 2017, society has become a police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting a number of game shows in which convicted criminals fight for their lives. The most popular and sadistic of these shows is the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where “runners” attempt to evade “stalkers” and certain death. Those that escape and “win”, Killian says, can be pardoned and set free.
Ben Richards, a former military helicopter pilot convicted of a massacre he actually tried to prevent, manages to escape from a labor camp with other inmates and flees to a shanty town on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Later seeking shelter at his brother’s apartment, Richards discovers it is now occupied by composer Amber Mendez, who works for ICS, the network that broadcasts The Running Man. Richards kidnaps Amber and plans to fly to Hawaii, but she alerts security and Richards is caught and taken to the ICS studios. Killian coerces him to compete in The Running Man with the threat that if he declines, his two weaker escapee friends—Laughlin and Weiss—will be put on the show instead. Richards complies, but as the show begins, Killian reveals that Laughlin and Weiss have been enrolled as runners anyway.
Richards and his friends are set upon by the first stalker, Subzero, who is eventually killed by Richards. While continuing to evade the barbaric stalkers, Laughlin and Weiss are also trying to locate the network’s uplink facilities, which are within the game zone; if the resistance can obtain the access codes to the satellites that broadcast ICS programming, they could hijack them and reveal the truth. Meanwhile, Amber decides to investigate the cover-up of the massacre, but she is captured and subsequently sent into the game zone, where she encounters Richards and the others. The runners split up, each pair pursued by a different stalker. Laughlin is mortally wounded by the stalker Buzzsaw, whom Richards subsequently kills. Weiss and Amber are successful in locating the uplink system and learning the access codes, but Weiss is subsequently killed by the stalker Dynamo. Amber’s screams lead Richards to her, and as the two evade the stalker, Dynamo’s buggy flips, trapping him inside. Richards then stuns the audience by merely pinning Dynamo in the vehicle, proclaiming that he will not kill a helpless man.
Amber and Richards return to Laughlin, whose wounds prove lethal. Before dying, he reveals that the resistance has a hideout within the game zone; it’s imperative to get Amber, who knows the satellite code, to them. Back at the ICS studio, Killian sees Richards’ popularity growing, with viewers betting for Richards to win when they are supposed to bet only on the stalkers. Off-camera, Killian offers Richards a job as a stalker, which he furiously declines. As the next stalker pursues Amber and Richards into an abandoned factory, Amber inadvertently finds the charred bodies of the previous season’s “winning” runners, whose victory was apparently faked. The stalker Fireball attempts to kill Amber, but Richards rescues her and kills Fireball with his own weaponry. Read more
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