Runner Review

Runner is a buddy-comedy throwback that sees two Americans having to complete the organ transfer from hell on Queensland’s east coast.

Hank Malone (Alan Ritchson) is a former Navy SEAL who works as a “runner” in Brisbane. He transports valuable goods, which include a government minister who partied too hard and a rare golden parrot. Hank is tasked with collecting Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson), a courier transporting a liver for a girl with a rare blood type. Due to the value of the liver, Hank and Ben are targeted by a drug cartel led by the sadistic Damian Zaldívar (Rodrigo Santoro).

Runner has come out at the same time as the similarly named thriller on Amazon Prime. On paper, the Amazon film seemed like the better bet since it was directed by Kevin Macdonald, the man behind films like Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland and Marley, whilst Runner director’s filmography includes Act of Valor, Need for Speed, and Expend4bles. Yet Runner won the critical battle. I went into Runner with low expectations, and I ended up having a hell of a time.

Runner was a simple film, but it was a case of it did the basics right. There were high stakes, a ticking clock, and excessively sadistic villains. Alan Ritchson has plenty of experience in action roles: he’s best known for playing Jack Reacher in the Amazon series, and in films like the 2010s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and Fast X. To use a technical term, he’s fucking huge: put some green body paint on him, and he could play the Hulk.

Runner fulfils the base urges of any action fan. It was wonderfully brutal as Hank used anything he could as a weapon, including various types of transport. Hank had the training to dispatch most people with ease, but he still faced some challenging opponents. He was John Wick’s gym-obsessed cousin. As Hank described himself, he’s not a man to fuck with. Santoro was a great villain because he was so cartoonishly evil. He had no issue killing random civilians. Damian’s clothing and use of pistols reminded me of Tybalt from the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet.

Buddy comedies centre on a chalk-and-cheese relationship, and that was the case in Runner. Hank was a focused, stoic, get-things-done type of person, whilst Ben was overly chatty and friendly. They had a fun dynamic. I enjoyed Ben trying to make the parrot a part of their group.

The mix of intensity, energy, and the fast pace made Runner feel like a ‘90s action film. It can be described as Speed if it were a buddy-comedy. Due to Scott Waugh’s stylish flourishes, Runner felt like a Michael Bay movie without the troubling comedy. Runner can be compared to Bay’s last narrative film, Ambulance, since that was also a medically themed chase movie. However, Runner’s big action sequence in the ambulance suffered from having too much ambition for the visual effects budget to handle.

The composer, Charlie Nguyen Kim, deserves a lot of praise because his music sounded epic. It could have fitted in a big Hollywood budget. Runner was Nguyen Kim’s first American film, having worked in France, and hopefully he will get more opportunities in Hollywood.

Runner was distributed by Angel Studio, which was a surprise because they’re infamous for being a Christian studio. They released Sound of Freedom and used a controversial pay-it-forward model to inflate the film’s box office. Runner can appeal to an older, conservative audience since the hero was an all-American hero. Many action films are arguably more conservative-leaning, and that doesn’t stop more liberally minded people from enjoying them. Runner is a film that would have some broader appeal.

Runner was a straightforward yet enjoyable actioner. It was like eating a hearty burger.