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The Runner -- a review

In The Runner (not to be confused with the 2015 film of the same name starring Nicolas Cage) Gal Godot (Wonder Woman) plays a London prosecuting attorney named Maia Martin who’s got a major case on the docks at the Old Bailey. She just has to drop her young son Noah (Rory Wilmot, who’s in the upcoming Harry Potter TV series) off at school before she heads out for her run. But while she’s later running in the park, Maia receives a call from an unknown man who states that he has kidnapped Noah, and unless Maia does exactly what he wants—which is to kill a star witness before he can testify—Noah will die. And we’re off!

Well, not really.

While it’s not as horrifyingly bad as some the more histrionic YouTube reviewers have made it out to be, The Runner is still frustrating because there’s a halfway decent movie in there, somewhere. It lacks the intensity of Nick Of Time (1995), a similarly styled thriller starring Johnny Depp, which presented its story in real time as Depp’s character was forced to kill a politician to save the life of his kidnapped daughter. The Runner, despite its seemingly bulletproof set up, oddly lacks any suspense, which is a pretty impressive feat. It might have a lot to do with the dopey demand from the caller (Homeland’s Damien Lewis) that Maia must run all over London.

Huh? Why is Maia forced to run to her destination—a hotel where the witness is located—which is several miles away, when she can just as easily take a ride-share, or the subway (aka the Tube) to get there? In other words, if the caller has gone through the trouble of setting all of this up, then he is obviously depending on Maia to do this hit—so why would he deliberately make it harder for her to do it? It doesn’t make any sense. If the filmmakers were hoping to use this concept to create suspense, it failed miserably. Because of this lingering plot hiccup, the whole trip just becomes annoying for the viewer.

Gal Godot has had a rough few years, most notably starring in the misbegotten Disney remake of Snow White (a perfect example of a horrifyingly bad movie if there ever was one). But, as a leading actor, Godot is extremely dependable and sturdy, easily capable of carrying an entire film on her slender shoulders, like Wonder Woman (2017). Despite this misfire, I’m still looking forward to Godot’s next project. And if you’re looking for a far better version of The Runner, then check out the marvelous Run, Lola, Run (1998), starring the sublime Franka Potente, who must run across Berlin to save the life of her boyfriend. Run, Lola, Run is everything that The Runner should have been and more. --SF

Presently, The Runner is only available on the Amazon streaming platform.

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