“The Running Man” is one of the 50,000 action films Arnold Schwarzenegger has made during his illustrious career. Released back in 1987, it is often the butt of jokes because of its somewhat campy approach. However, I have always considered it to be vastly underrated and in today’s world of Reality TV, somewhat prophetic. The movie was based on a short story by Stephen King (writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), and revolves around Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), who is wrongly accused if a murder. He is sentenced to perform in a ‘reality-based’ game show, where you have to run for your life… literally. Richards is forced to run a gauntlet in an attempt to survive battles with ‘American Gladiator’ style stalkers. If he can outrun and outlive them, he can go free. The catch is that the game is as fixed as any of the new reality shows currently glutting the airwaves. The film differed greatly from the original short story, which was far darker in tone. In the book, the ending did not include the survival of certain characters.

The film was more colorful and the game show very glitzy, and in some ways it was a bit campy, however it somehow seems more true to life in light of the direction TV has gone.

I’ve never felt the compulsion to watch today’s reality shows, but unfortunately thanks to commercials and entertainment magazines I know enough about them to realize we may very well be heading in the direction shown in the film. You may laugh, but I’ll bet you cold hard cash right now that it’s coming. The American public is just that bored, and there’s always some money hungry producer ready to pounce on that boredom and ‘push the envelope’ as they say.

Anyhow, back to the movie. It was cool to see Jim Brown as Fireball and Jesse Ventura as Captain Freedom (back before he became Governor of Minnesota and got all ‘serious’), but the most inspired bits of casting had to be that of Richard Dawson as the producer and host of “The Running Man”, Damon Killian. I had always remembered Dawson as Newkirk from “Hogan’s Heroes”, but most of America recognized him from his stint as the host of the game show “Family Feud.” He successfully took the charming personality he used on “Feud” and bastardized it, creating a terrifically over the top character in Killian. He was loud, he was obnoxious, and he was the embodiment of every sleazy, greedy little producer to ever work in Hollywood.

When I first saw the movie back when it came out, I was at first turned off by the differences from the book. It wasn’t until I saw it a few years later that really started to appreciate all the subtle nuances and seemingly psychic predictions it was making about the future, and even more so re-visiting it again the other day. And once again proving that my movie trivia addled brain isn’t as sharp as I thought, finally noticed that the film was directed by Paul Michael Glaser. That’s right, having cut his teeth by directing a few episodes of “Starsky and Hutch”, and later “Miami Vice”, ‘Otherworld” and “Amazing Stories”, he finally made his theatrical film debut as a director with “Band of the Hand.” “The Running Man” was only his second big screen outing, and looking back I can really appreciate the work he did on it.

The new DVD from Lions Gate is a 2-disc affair, which offers up two versions of the film. The 1st disc has a widescreen version for those of us who know how to watch a movie in style, while the 2nd disc has the Full Screen version for… well… those other people. Both deliver extremely clean transfers with the movie looking and sounding better than it ever has in any previous home release. I turned the volume up really loud, was thankful that I don’t have any neighbors that live close by. They might have thought there was a war going on.

Each disc also has its own set of features. There are two commentaries on the 1st disc, one by director Glaser and producer Tim Zinneman and the other by executive producer Rob Cohen. I enjoyed them both, but when you have more than one person involved in a commentary it tends to get a bit conversational, which I think is better so I really liked that first one.

There is also a very unusual documentary on the disc called “Lock Down on Main Street.” It was unusual in the fact that it had nothing to do with the film with the exception of the topic being about Governmental control and the loss of privacy. It focused on the way that laws have changed post 9/11, and is a very one-sided look at the Patriot Act and how it affects ordinary citizens. I’m not sure that the documentary belongs on this DVD, but because my own political beliefs mirror the opinions expressed here, I recommend watching it. It doesn’t paint a very rosy picture of President Bush and the state of the government these days, but there is no reason it should. These guys are out of control and the American public is sheepishly going along with it. (I realize my opinions on the government might not belong in a DVD review, but since the documentary might not belong on the DVD, they kind of go hand in hand.)

The 2nd disc has a documentary called “Game Theory”, which again is not about “The Running Man” directly, but as it is a look at Reality TV and how it works, it certainly applies and definitely belongs. After this feature, we finally get a feature directly related to the movie. It gives a look at the different stalkers who are after Arnie in the movie. It’s mostly just made up of little clips from the movie, but also has stats and a closer look at their costumes. Last, but not least, we get to check out the original Theatrical trailer.

I still say “The Running Man” has been one of the more underrated of Arnie’s older films and deserves another look. It’s very campy, but is filled with just enough action, humor and political and social commentary to make up for any of its shortcomings. And Richard Dawson steals every scene he’s in. Heck, Arnie even gets to say, “I’ll be back…” so how can you go wrong?

Directed by: Paul Michael Glaser
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson, Maria Conchita Alonso, Jim Brown, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura
Extras: Commentary by Director Paul Michael Glaser and Producer Tim Zinneman, Commentary by Executive Producer Rob Cohen, “Lock Down on Main Street” Documentary, “Game Theory” Documentary, “Meet the Stalkers” Theatrical Trailer
Specifications: Widescreen and Full Screen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX, 6.1 DTS-ES Dolby
Studio: Lions Gate
Release Date: 3/16/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: R
Website

We'll give The Running Man: Special Edition a B.