UPDATE: “The Running Man” is now on Epix On Demand and will air several times this month.
By Darren Johnson
The year 2019 is the setting for the prescient movie “The Running Man,” which I will get to shortly, but along the way I will also relate this 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger near-future film to current entertainment, including:
“Live PD” on A&E Network;
“Escape From Dannemora” on Showtime; and
“Prison Fighters: Five Rounds to Freedom” on Showtime.
As for “The Running Man” it’s a bit hard to find in this content-saturated era but I was able to nab it on my DVR recently, as it aired at 2 a.m. on some obscure channel. It’s available for $2.99 on Amazon Prime, as well, and that’s about it.
I wasn’t a big Schwarzenegger fan as a kid, but did see a lot of his movies because they were everywhere. Today, younger viewers when they see such films wonder why a guy with such a heavy accent whose acting is marginal was cast in so many mainstream movies. The movies also have dated humor and concepts of masculinity. Schwarzenegger films, for the most part, don’t translate.
That said, I remember as a kid thinking “The Running Man” was cooler than the rest of Schwarzenegger’s steroid-raged body of work. Based on a 1982 book by Stephen King (it was early in his career and he wrote it under the pen name Richard Bachman), the story is about a 2019 game show where convicts – on live TV – can fight for their freedom. Many of the concepts of this movie have proven true, including:
Richard Dawson (the smarmy original host of “Family Feud”) plays the show’s Machiavellian, politically astute reality show host (think Donald Trump and “The Apprentice”).
Reality TV wasn’t a thing in 1982 or even 1987. “Running Man” predicts this genre.
Live, real-time TV is now popular again after decades of scripting.
“Running Man” features flamboyant physical contests, which are now common on gladiator shows and competitive reality fare like “Big Brother” and “Survivor.”
The story also plays off of an increasing divide between rich and poor and resulting riots.
As the live, reality game show depicted in “The Running Man” is about prisoners vying for their escape, many of their back stories are trumped up by the media as it is; in other words, “fake news.” A former military operative, Schwarzenegger’s character (the character’s name doesn’t matter – it’s basically just him in all of his movies) is falsely accused of murdering protesters in Bakersfield, Calif., and police cam footage is altered to portray that falsified reality.
This all ties in to other things I’ve been watching:
I’ve been a little late to the table on “Live PD.” It has such a simple title I just didn’t see it amongst the scroll of hundreds of shows on my cable guide. But apparently this show has a loyal following. The technology is finally there to show us policework live, and apparently the legal issues of putting suspects on live TV have been hammered out – even if they are innocent. But the show is riveting. In case you haven’t seen it, it airs live Friday and Saturday nights and anything can happen. Camera crews follow cops in towns in Florida, Texas, Ohio, Nevada, California and Rhode Island and producers quickly cut to wherever there’s the most interesting action. It’s also interesting how the presence of the cameras affects the behavior of the cops and suspects. Perhaps we really are in an era where government, celebrity and media are becoming one.
Which brings us to “Escape From Dannemora,” directed by Ben Stiller, who was able to use his influence to film in the actual prison that two convicts escaped from a couple of years ago, leading to an internationally publicized manhunt. The story of their escape is fantastic, but the filming in a real, live prison – showing how prisoners really live – is the story.
“Prison Fighters: Five Rounds to Freedom” is about a real Thai program where talented prisoners can kickbox their way out of lengthy sentences. They fight internally in sanctioned prison contests and eventually, if they stay undefeated, fight publicly, usually against Western mercenaries. If they win that big fight – thus demonstrating that Muay Thai is superior – they are issued a royal pardon; even if, in the case of one of the featured fighters in this film, he is a murderer. The documentarian (Micah Brown) also interviews the parents of the murdered victim and we learn about his story; he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was sadistically killed. Should the murderer go free simply because he can beat some jobber Western fighter in a show of Thai nationalism?
Yes, “The Running Man” looks dated. The 1980s Aqua Net up-dos, the proliferation of cigarettes, corded telephones, corny lines. Mistakes are made. But it’s worth a rewatch to see what they got right as we enter 2019. And maybe it’s still a cautionary tale.
Darren Johnson publishes Campus News, which now has news boxes on the streets of New York City. His decade-old column “It’s New to You!” finds forgotten gems. Read more streaming reviews on Nu2U.info!
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