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The Running Man

The Running Man

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very watchable
Review: Obviously not one of the best or maybe even one of Arnold's best, but I have enjoyed watching all or parts of it several times and I don't get tired of it. Isn't that what you want in a film you are going to shell out bucks to have your own copy of?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE BEST !!! HE SAID EVERY TIME : " I'LL BE BACK "
Review: I'm not American or english man ( so excuse me for the bad english )and i would like to see this film in french version language, and why not ? Why this wonderfull film can't be seen in french language ? I don't understand witch this film can be store on AMAZON.COM AMERICA AND NOT ON AMAZON FRANCE !!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Arnie runs for his life
Review: This overly predictable sci-fi/action yarn (based on a story by Stephen King which he wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman) stars good 'ol Arnie as a wrongfully accused man forced to fight for his life on a TV game show in the year 2017. Former Family Feud game show host Richard Dawson is great as the slimy evil game show host, and the rest of the cast includes Maria Conchita Alonso (as a love interest who believes Arnie's innocence), the late Yapphet Kotto (as one of Arnie's pals), and Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura. The Running Man is action packed and is a solid, albeit cheesy, Arnie extravaganza, but if your looking for some of Arnold's better films your better off checking out Total Recall, Predator, or either Terminator film.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Running Man: The Real Stars are the Viewers
Review: The world of the next few years will very much be like the world we live in today. Director Paul Michael Glaser in THE RUNNING MAN posits a economically blighted society that depends on consumer spending to keep it afloat, and television ratings is the means to do that. A hit television show called 'The Running Man' features convicted criminals running for their lives to avoid a series of weirdly garbed pursuers called Stalkers who always kill them in spectacular ways guaranteed to garner high ratings. This kind of show is what in our time is called a 'reality' show, a hybrid of THE GONG SHOW, SURVIVOR, and FEAR FACTOR. Ironically enough, when THE RUNNING MAN was first released in 1987, there were no reality shows. Director Glaser with amazing foresight merely carried the then trend of borderline idiotic quiz shows, many of which were hosted by Richard Dawson, who as Killian, emerges as the dramatic center of this movie. It is he, rather than the titular star, Arnold Schwarznegger, who steals the limelight. Killian is the host of a game show that panders to the mindless spending habits of the American public. Apparently, by the year 2017, the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights have been eroded sufficiently to allow on-air executions of the condemned. Killian is filthy, loud, abrasive, self-serving, but that is the point. By the movie's end, when he and Arnold have their inevitable confrontation, Killian tries to justify his role by claiming that he merely gives what the public had been wanting anyway, a means for a brainless audience to want their minds put into neutral and watch human beings sliced and diced just before a cut to a commercial. Arnold, of course, represents the call to decency and gives Killian a taste of his own medicine. The problem with this is that Killian is right. The cultural deck has long since been stacked against the kind of decency that would have seen through the viciousness of a show of the ilk of THE RUNNING MAN. Merely eliminating Killian might make contemporary audiences feel that a sense of normalcy has returned, but to the audience of THE RUNNING MAN, another cut to a commercial is all that would have been required to send a call to the bullpen for another loathesome host who would make Killian seem sainted.

THE RUNNING MAN is a troubling movie, not in any technical sense, since after all it is a Arnold movie which mandates body counts, explosions, startling special effects, stellar supporting actors (Jesse Ventura and Maria Conchita Alonso shine), and Arnold's penchant for throwing out quips and puns as he decimates yet another villain. The problem with THE RUNNING MAN is that as a satire of quiz shows and moronic audiences, it works only too well. The concluding kiss that Arnold plants on Maria Conchita Alonso's lips does not go far enough to make the viewer feel that the slime of a debased and debauched television culture can ever be wiped clean. It is not often that a movie that tries so hard to be entertaining instead morphs into a film that makes this audience think even while trying its best to make the audience-in-the-film not to think at all.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A pretty Descent Arnold 80's action flick
Review: This is a pretty good movie for arnold. Taking a different direction from his last few blow-em up shoot-em up type movies (terminator,commando,raw dea), this type, arnold is running for his life instead of the bad guys. Their is plenty of good action, with some great hand to hand fights, and even the "fake" fight with jesse ventura is a pretty descent fight between them. The villain/s are good, a hockey bladed foe, a chainsaw wielding bast ard, a flame thrower, and an electic shockin man all provide a challenge for arnold to defeat. But whats an Arnold movie without the occasional shootout. IN the beginning prison escape, arnold is caught up in the middle of a shoot out, and at the end he is also caught in a viscious gun fight. A lot of diverse action.........it delivers

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ahead of its time..
Review: Ok, first off I'll say that I'm not a big Arnold fan, and the movie is campy and silly at times. That said, the concept of a futuristic TV show that kills people off for entertainment of the masses is truly prophetic. Think about all the enourmously popular 'reality' TV shows of today. How long will it be before the decision is made to air shows that actually show people getting killed? I'm not talking about news reports here, I'm talking about people being killed for purely entertainment purposes, perhaps with a bit of prize money dangled in front of them. Are we really that far away from the modern-day equivalent of the Roman Colllesium? And we all know what happened to Rome soon after their population lost all sense of decency and compassion.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Only in a re-run
Review: This film is based on a short novel Stephen King wrote under the pen name Richard Bachman of the same name.
The film itself became social satire, with television being the central character in this satire.
The year is 2019, nobody has anything better to do with their time than to watch television. And so, the highest rating program is a game show called 'The Running Man'. Contestants are all convicted felons, who are given the chance to win their freedom and a pardon from their crimes, but only if they survive the game. They must live through three hours of stalking and facing death in the face more than once. So far, nobody has won.
But Ben Richards hasn't played yet. He's an ex-cop who refused to carry out orders to kill innocent people in the streets, but the press claimed that he did it, and with pleasure. After he escapes from prison, he is recaptured and meets the loathsome and undignified game show host Damien Killian. Killian threatens to put two fellow inmates, whom he befriended in prison on the game. Richards consents to be put on this freak show, but he has a plan to play the game and escape with his life, irrespective of whether he finishes the game or not. And that is because he plans to change the rules a little, where the hunted will become the hunter.
Although big Arnie is the star of the show, the film wouldn't be complete without Mick Fleetwood as the leader of an underground resistance organisation. Or Dweezil Zappa as Mick's right hand man. Who could possibly forget Jessie Ventura as the retired Captain Freedom (go figure!), who spends his time scoffing down steroids while he stares at a poster of himself in a pathetic moment of self-gratification?
Don't let the lack of extra features put you off, if you are a big fan of this movie, go and buy it. This is the kind of movie that one should appreciate for the powerful, and relevant, social statement being made. Not for the presence or absence of special features.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW, I MEAN WOW
Review: Two words, Yaphet Kotto. Need I say more?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: What a Parable
Review: Arnie's back, and this time he goes from being the good guy to the bad guy, and getting himself into a trick by a society who's hooked on TV and gameshows. He becomes the hunted to save his life, and he does just that. But I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet. Lots of action, and not a bad adaptation of the Stephen King story. You won't be disappointed. Richard Dawson is superb as well, but he plays himself well.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Well-Filmed Sci-Fi Adventure Movie!
Review: In this wry and entertaining take on a world gone crazy, where corporate rulers routinely engage popular sport activities to distill public anger and frustration and to try to distract common people from civic unrest, we find perpetual everyman Arnold Schwarzenegger caught in the vise-grip of official lies when he escapes from maximum security prison only to be caught and selected as the latest "contestant" (read 'intended victim' here) for the overwhelmingly popular television program called, appropriately enough, "Running Man". The point of the game is for the contestant to survive being hunted down by a sewerful of villains while trying to make his way through a nightmarish maze. The villains are a bit campy, ranging from an outrageously garbed electric man who dispatches virtual lightning bolts to fry his prey out of existence to a chainsaw freak who attempts to hack his victims to death while riding his motorcycle.

Yet the action sequences more than make up for the sometimes-silly dialogue. The supporting cast is composed of veterans like Richard Dawson as the venomous game-show host and producer, who manipulates every aspect of the game to reach the storyline he has laid out. There are also a lot of cameos here, from Mick Fleetwood as a revolutionary to Jessie "The Body" Ventura as a sports commentator to Jim Brown as one of the slayers. The special effects are well done, and the action sequences provide plenty of vicarious violence for the moviegoer. Of course, Arnie has a waft of throwaway one-liners, and we know we are in the hands of experience when he tells Dawson the "he'll be back". Dawson, of course, not knowing whom he is dealing with, blows off the threat.

But the moviegoer knows Arnie will be back, and that he will win the day. This is not an intellectually satisfying film, but it is a good, sold action adventure based on an early story of Steven King's that will keep you amused and entertained. It provided one of a series of sequential hits for Schwarzenegger, and helped to cement his reputation as a bankable superstar. Great stuff for wiling away a snowy winter day. Enjoy!


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