Logic trips up The Runner
You gotta give it to Gal Gadot. She can run, and do so in a variety of ways. If you need her to run with joy, she’s on it. If she needs to run with desperation, no one does it better. Throw in being able to commit this act in a dramatic fashion, as if exhausted or with anger, the actress has it covered. If nothing else, she’s a runner for all seasons, emotions and intents. Were there an Oscar category for Best Running Performance in a Film, she’d be the frontrunner (See what I did there?) every year.
Miss Gadot’s range in this particular dramatic filed is on full display in – you guessed it – The Runner, a ticking clock movie that’s as short on logic as it is with its running time, which, clocking in at 85 minutes, is one of its biggest selling points. Though ridiculous, the movie does have its moments, many of them supplied by its star who brings a conviction to her role it doesn’t deserve, her display of determination in all situations, commendable and at times compelling.
The actress is Maia, a lawyer for a high-profile firm who’s prosecuting an individual so powerful the star witness has to be kept in hiding for his own safety. (Just who is being tried and why is kept conveniently vague.) However, before she sets out for her big day in court, she goes through her morning routine which includes sending her son, Noah (Rory Wilmot), off to school. Oh, and also going on her morning run.
It’s during her sprint through London’s parks that she gets a phone call. An ominous, anonymous voice (Damien Lewis) informs her that her son has been taken and in order to get him back, she needs to kill that hard-to-find star witness. And she has to do so in a little under two hours as he’s given Noah, who happens to be diabetic, an extra shot of insulin. Now in a coma, the little guy will slip away for good if she doesn’t get there in time to administer a shot that will reverse this process. She’ll get her son’s location once she carries out the killing.
However, before that can happen, she needs to run from the outskirts of London to the downtown hotel where her would-be victim is located, our unseen villain wanting to keep her occupied and trackable all the way. Credit the film for tapping into the paranoia du jour regarding our dependence on technology, its pervasiveness and its disturbing intrusiveness. Her nemesis has access to every piece of information on Maia’s life as well as all personal information on her laptop and any other devices. Seeing her most intimate secrets used against her can’t help but give the viewer pause, knowing how easy it could be to be placed in her shoes.
Equally effective is the movie’s use of Hitchcock’s oft-used theme of the falsely accused innocent person on the run. As she traipses across London, our heroine is forced to commit a variety of illegal acts in order to alert authorities, the police in hot pursuit. The sense of frustration and injustice she feels is relatable.
The revelation of a secret Maia is hiding is a shocker and deserves a much better film built around it. However, once we get to the climax and a flashback reveals the many actions that took place to pull it off, it stretches the film’s logic to the breaking point. Yes, The Runner is nothing but a piece of escapism, but it sprints past common sense to its detriment. Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Runner riotously ridiculous
After reading the review of the Gal Gadot “thriller,” The Runner, you’re likely experiencing a bit of déjà vu. Not to worry, In a case of unfortunate serendipity, a film called Runner just happens to be opening this week as well and beyond their almost-exact titles, they have other things in common. Both, in their efforts to dazzle us, treat logic and common sense as so much narrative collateral damage. Each has people working beneath their talents, while their screenplays are undone by a lack of imagination. Other than those things, you can’t tell them apart.
Unlike the lithe Ms. Gadot, the star of this feature is Alan Ritchson. Too big to be a man, too small to be a horse, this is not an actor who could be described as fleet of foot. Thankfully, Runner does not require that he sprint about Australia where the film is set. His Hank Malone is like a glorified delivery man. This particular day, his package is Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson), who happens to be a courier as well. The package in his possession is a liver that needs to be taken from Brisbane to the Gold Coast Hospital. He’s to deliver the precious organ to a 7-year-old patient with an incredibly rare blood type.
However, before they can even start their journey, Malone realizes they’re being followed. Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a nefarious mob boss, who happens to be a 60-year-old-woman, who just HAPPENS to have the same blood type and just HAPPENS to need a liver transplant as well. What are the odds? She’s sent her son, Damian (Rodrigo Santoro), to get it at all costs and bring it to the most unhygienic operating room you’ve ever seen, where a surgeon they’ve kidnapped will perform the transplant.
Now, I’m no medical expert but I had a thought while watching this. Can’t you simply transplant part of a liver into a recipient because it will regenerate and grow to its proper size? And, if that’s the case, wouldn’t they be able to split the liver and give a piece of it to each of the characters who need it? Unlike “screenwriters” Miles Hubley and Tommy White, I consulted an expert and was assured this is possible.
But, of course, why would they or director Scott Waugh be concerned with details such as this? They have far better things to put on screen such as prolonged car chases, ridiculous fight sequences and ham-fisted scenes meant to elicit tears but produce unintended laughter instead. You know, things we’ve never seen before.
The chemistry between Ritchson and Wilson is strained throughout and they never create the sort of appealing contrary banter that makes the Rush Hour films and so many others like it so enjoyable. Waugh seems to think he’s making an updated version of the classic Midnight Run, which Hubley and White, at one point, shamelessly crib from. The two stars do what they can, and are each appealing separatly, yet their failure to mesh proves a critical drawback.
What’s most disturbing about this movie is its combination of violence and comedy. Damian and his crew commit some truly heinous acts, their graphic nature pushing the boundaries of the film’s PG-13 rating. These moments clash with Ritchson and Wilson’s witty banter, producing the most incongruous combination of elements since a group of vegetarians got trapped in a meat-packing plant. It becomes increasingly clear that Waugh simply doesn’t know how to read a room.
One of the things I hate about most ticking clock films is the way the grave deadline is ultimately so egregiously ignored. Here, with only 45 minutes to go before the liver is no longer usable, events that would have taken well over an hour take place, including a fight so ridiculous the Three Stooges would have felt right at home. But again, there I go expecting things to make sense, which is my curse. At the expense of logic, Runner sets out to entertain. For some, it may achieve that goal. For others…well, there’s always books. In theaters.
Fix in need of narrative repair
Guy Moshe’s The Fix is a three-act film in search of a purpose. Then again, it could be considered three-movies-in-one, none of them particularly compelling. I’d be hard-pressed to recall an action film done with such little enthusiasm. This is a by-the-numbers, rote exercise that finds each performer simply going through the motions in the service of a painfully predictable script. That is, until the end, when numerous third-act twists cascade from the sky, as if some writer’s “break-in-need-of-inspiration” bag had been opened, thrown in the air and every desperate plot device had come tumbling out.
The time is 2021, the place is the Kabul Airport and as U.S. Armed Forces are trying to defend the facility and get American citizens and their allies safe passage out of the country, an elite force is prepared to go back in. Cut from the same cloth of capable, no-nonsense stoicism as all other movie tough guys, the group is led by Tucker (Zachary Levi). His superior, Larry (Liam Neeson), a wizard of Black-Ops, has called him in along with Clay (Quincy Isaiah), Charlie (Jake Choi), Alex (Wes Chatham), Bruce (Augusto Aguilera) and Matt (Grant Harvey) to find an Afghani asset who’s been taken. Their mission is to rescue him or kill him before he divulges key intel. They succeed, forced to take the more heinous option, but it appears as though Larry may have double-crossed them.
Jump ahead to movie two, which takes place in modern day. Seems Larry has an aggressive form of dementia and is babbling things he shouldn’t. His wife calls Tucker for help and while visiting, his old mentor rambles on about having hidden $25 million behind a wall at the Hotel Tehran in the 1980s. What he doesn’t recall is the room number; however, an old partner he had (Lara Wolf) just might. Tucker looks her up and, of course, she knows exactly where the cash is, but there’s a catch. She won’t divulge it until our hero and his buds rescue her revolutionary daughter (Annet Mahndru) who’s being held in Tehran. In order to scope out the situation, Tucker hires Zara (Elnaaz Norouzi) to pose as his wife, so he can pretend to be a businessman seeking new opportunities.
Yes, there are many moving parts, and I haven’t even gotten to the men-on-a-mission third act. (For those keeping score at home, the first part was “the men on a botched mission prologue,” while the second was “let’s-get-the-gang-back-together-for-a-shot-at-redemption” section.) There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better before. By the same token, there’s nothing here that couldn’t be given a fresh polish put and done successfully once more.
Unfortunately, Moshe’s languid approach dooms this from the start. I’m not sure if the film suffers from narrative bloat or if the story simply seems longer because its executed so blandly. While some of the action sequences are capably executed, there’s a distinct lack of urgency to the whole affair. Though Levi tries to bring a bit of a spark to the film, he and Norouzi doing fine work, everyone else is simply going through the paces. This as well as the predictable nature of the script make for a long haul, the movie clocking in at nearly two-and-a-half hours.
Then again, what with three plot twists in its last 20 minutes, I suppose an argument could be made that at least this section wasn’t predictable. While I thought the first was clever and the second was “meh,” by the time we got to the third I was rolling my eyes, the sense of desperation in Mark Bacci, Mark Hitchinson and Moshe’s script palpable.
While the writer’s politics are to be commended, much of what they are preaching from their soap box is low-hanging fruit. Like their film, there’s a sense of safety and familiarity to it all. While I take no exception to any artist taking a guarded approach, I draw the line when it comes to being bored by their efforts. The Fix manages to do just that, despite its excessive pyrotechnics budget. In theaters.
