Tag Archives: New Hampshire

The Running Man

Does America harbor a sadistic society? Are stunt-based TV competitions a last refuge for the desperate? Is “reality” TV real or is it faked? How close are we to a dystopian police state? 

These are legitimate questions one might ask after seeing the new film The Running Man. But if you want to ENJOY the movie, it’s best to table those questions for now and let the almost non-stop action take you along on Ben Richards’s quest for survival. It’s a fun ride with new challenges for The Running Man popping up constantly.

Richards (Glen Powell) is a husband and father whose baby daughter needs meds. He can’t keep a job and keeps getting fired for insubordination. His wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) works at a strip joint as a waitress. Richards goes to network studios to pursue a spot on a game show and ends up as one of three contestants on The Running Man. The odds that he will survive the hunters who chase him are small but the potential reward is a huge pile of money. 

The film is a revised remake of the 1987 film The Running Man which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Richards and Richard Dawson as Damian Killian, the producer and host of the TV show. The new film stars Josh Brolin as producer Dan Killian and Colman Domingo as Bobby, the show’s host. The prize money is in “new dollars” and the currency shown has Schwarzenegger’s photo on it!

Richards’s journey takes him from the dystopian city where he lives to New Hampshire and Maine. The tale is from a book by Bangor resident Stephen King, originally published under the nom de plume Richard Bachman.

Before he hits the road he gets disguises and fake IDs from a crafty anarchist played by the always excellent Willam H. Macy.

In a beautiful old New England home Richards is given refuge by Elton, a strange man played by Micheal Cera whose crazed mother (Sandra Dickinson) ID’s Richards and calls in the Hunters to take him in. For Cera, this is his second odd ball role this year, following his appearance in The Phoenician Scheme back in the spring. 

Richards escapes, ending up in a highway chase, riding with a young woman Amelia (Emilia Jones) before boarding an airplane where he faces off with a prior Running Man contestant Evan McCone (Lee Pace) on his way to the story’s conclusion.

The action is intense and the story moves fast. The movie isn’t exactly one long chase scene but Richards has to stay on the move. A one word review of The Running Man might be “kinetic.” As mentioned, it’s a fun film and Glen Powell is up to the task of carrying it to the finish line. Enjoy it with the large bucket of popcorn.

The Running Man is directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Michael Bacall. Rated R.

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Labor Day

Director Jason Reitman has gone straight. Labor Day is a melodrama that’s quite different from his usual style.

Jason Reitman is known for hip, edgy movies that have a biting wit. Thank You For Smoking, Juno, Up In The Air and Young Adult have specific points of view on modern American life. They have memorable flawed characters. They have killer opening sequences.

Labor Day, set in a small New Hampshire town over Labor Day weekend 1987, has its flawed characters. But the story has no significant agenda/message. And its title sequence is standard and ho-hum. Reitman wrote the script, based on the novel by Joyce Maynard.

Frank (James Brolin) is an escaped prisoner who chooses young Henry (Gattlin Griffith) and his divorced mom Adele (Kate Winslet) to hide him out in their home. Over this long weekend, Adele, a lonely woman who is beset with anxiety, finds comfort in the arms of this not-so-frightening convicted murderer.

Frank cooks! He feeds his chili (whose ingredients include coffee) by the spoonful to Kate. (He has temporarily tied her and Henry up so that, should authorities bust in, they would not suspect they were aiding and abetting the convict.) When a neighbor (J.K. Simmons) brings a basket of ripe peaches, Frank makes a peach pie with help from Adele and Henry. Yes, the pie making is sensuous.

Along with romancing mom, Frank is nice to Henry. He’s also nice to Barry (Micah Fowler), a handicapped kid who Adele agrees to watch for a few hours.

Reitman teases with flashback snippets of Frank and Adele’s respective early lives and episodes that made them the people they have become. As the flashbacks become more complete, so do the characters.

Of course, most of the film is a flashback, narrated by the adult Henry (Tobey Maguire). The actor portraying the young Henry, Gattlin Griffith, is impressive in his understated performance.

As authorities intensify their manhunt, Frank and Adele make a plan to leave town and take refuge in Canada. This decision leads to the film’s climax, which will not be revealed here.

Reitman’s effort to go mainstream is partially successful. He tells this suspenseful story well, but it moves very slowly at times. Should there have been more graphic evidence of Frank and Adele’s romance? Probably yes, but they wanted a PG-13 rating—more evidence of Reitman’s desire to play to the masses.

Sadly, Labor Day feels like a Lifetime/Hallmark movie with upgraded acting.

 

 

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