The Running Man (1987)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

i must have seen a different film!!

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

What an absolute 80s CLASSIC!!! I'm a massive SCHWARZENEGGER fan since i was very young & grew up watching his Awesome brutal action films. The Running Man along with Predator, Commando,Red Heat,Kindergarten Cop & Terminator was the main bunch of his BRILLIANT films i remember watching & loving so much way back on old video!!! NO ONE was better than SCHWARZENEGGER. Nostalgia overload every time i watch one these all CLASSIC movies of his.Any way Running Man is a fantastic Sci-fi Action Thriller that's brutal & exciting & so rewatchable with great music & a great performance by Arnie as Ben Richards!!! A great old school 80s Action movie. Easily one of Arnies Top 5 movies!!!

Great action movie and even more importantly it is Arnold Schwarzenegger movie! For the time, amazing special effects yet NOT computer CGI which is such a nice change from the new movies infested with too much CGI.Absolutely love this movie, it was ahead of its time, futuristic, similar in a way to Total Recall and has elements of Hunger Games. Well, Hunger Games took this idea from this movie and other movies. Remember, this is 1987!Arnie's best quotes can be noted in this movie as all time classic phrases like "I'll be back".Love it!

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jesse Ventura and Sven-Ole Thorsen. No, I didn't watch Predator again. :DFuturistic action movie based on Steven King's story, published under pseudonym Richard Bachman, tells a story about modern gladiator games in which convicts get a chance to win their freedom if they survive the arena. Movie about totalitarian regime, media monopoly and a world at the edge of ecological and economical disaster. And about always current 'panem et circenses' tactics. It was made in 1987. and story is placed in 2017. Once described future comes to pass, futuristic movies usually become unconvincing, but not this one. Although actual 2017. and 2017. in this movie seemingly have no touch points, difference is only in appearance, while essentially they are much more alike than we are comfortable to admit."Schwarzenegger rising, with his criminal one-liners, which had already developed their own personality and received a fee on separate bank account." - Aleksandar UroševićIf you are searching for top cinematography better pass this flick, but within the genre it's pretty good and, if you are looking just for good entertainment with decent plot, I warmly recommend it.6/10

A camp, incredibly cheesy and dated '80s movie with Schwarzenegger, yet it's still a lot more fun than RAW DEAL. If you wanted one film that epitomised the cheesiness of the '80s then this would be a good film to look at. Although the title is taken from a Stephen King story (writing under his usual Richard Bachman pseudonym), this film actually succeeds in ripping off Joe D'Amato's ENDGAME and other Italian post-apocalyptic movies; it's not often that American films rip off their Italian counterparts so this makes an exception.In this particular futuristic world, class is divided by those who work for the government and those who don't (and live lives of grime in the streets below). Into this world comes Arnie, who is betrayed by his employers and thrown into a prison camp. Prisoners have a metal necklace which explodes if they try to escape, leading to a cool exploding head scene a la SCANNERS. Obviously the makers of FORTRESS liked this idea as they used a similar one in their film, except the explosive was in the stomach instead of the neck. Of course, being the hulking muscular bloke that he is, Arnie does manage to escape before being unfortunately recaptured on an airport runway. Here, after a slow start, the fun begins.The incredibly slimy Richard Dawson plays Killian, a megalomaniac game show host who wants Arnie for his show. Arnie is forced into submission, thrown into the pit with a couple of his fellow escapees, and must battle a string of amusingly-named and even more amusingly-attired villains. Eventually, he beats the system, exposes the truth, infiltrates the television show and wipes out all of the bad guys in time for a cheesy happy ending. What more could you want? A little intelligence perhaps? Nope, sorry, you've come to the wrong place. This is out-and-out dumb entertainment. Sure, there is the occasional glimpse of intelligence (I liked the idea of previous "winners" who supposedly went to live in Hawaii, but whose corpses are found rotting in an underground room) but for the majority of it, this film just consists of out-and-out action.Schwarzenegger here indulges in his cheap, predictable one-liners (as in COMMANDO) which I still manage to get a kick out of. Maria Cochita Alonso is the female lead and lends some Latin spirit to the proceedings, with her agreeably-tough female fighter not having to get rescued too often by Arnie. Old hand Yaphet Kotto stars as Arnie's pal, and while it's sad to see him in a tight bodysuit, his presence nonetheless manages to upgrade the film a little. I've never seen him looking so out of place though. However, it is the cast who make up the bad guys who are of the most interest. Aside from Dawson's slimy game show host, we have blaxploitation star Jim Brown as "Fireball", who ends up igniting himself; Professor Toru Tanaka as "Subzero", who gets strangled with barbed wire, Gus Rethwisch going way over the top as "Buzzsaw", who gets sliced in two between the legs (ouch!) and finally Jesse Ventura (who's now gone political, believe it or not) as "Captain Freedom", who isn't really an adversary but who just stands around being annoying.The action scenes pass the time, but lack finesse. It's just a case of "point the camera and shoot", although Arnie fighting is always good for a chuckle. I thought the ending to be a bit lacklustre too, but that may be down to budget constraints. One thing I did like was the set design, which convincingly creates a grime-strewn future world full of crumbling buildings, decaying rubbish and the like. At least it looks good. THE RUNNING MAN is definitely worth watching to see what kind of films they made in the '80s, but the Italian films that inspired this are even funnier AND more cheesy, if that's even possible.