2008 was the year that I decided to start my girlfriend's education. For too many years she had gone along unaware of the true masters of cinema. During our time together she has refused to watch any film made during the 80s believing it to be a time of poor taste and bad cinema. Even worse she has refused to watch any films starring movie Gods such as Stallone, Van Damme or Willis. No longer will this happen as the BBC's freeview service means that these masters dominate the airwaves. Barely a night goes by without an action classic on ITV4 or Virgin1. Therefore, when I saw that 'The Running Man' was being shown on TV one night I glued her to the sofa and aimed ...  Read the complete review

THE RUNNING MAN Stephen King, you could presume, has a certain degree of foresight. Whilst not exactly identical to his novel The Running Man (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman and published in 1982), the likes of Big Brother, Shipwrecked and any other hopeless reality television programme you care to mention certainly conforms to his future society where the masses lap up reality game shows. Yet the game shows in King's world are often deadly to the contestants despite the big money prizes on offer, making it all the more intriguing for the bloodthirsty audiences of the future to enjoy. Imagine being treated to the likes of watching some nobody ...  Read the complete review

The Running Man is one of those films that claims to be based on a book by Richard Bachmann (a pseudonym of Stephen King). The reality is somewhat different. Beyond the basic concept and a couple of character names, the book and the film have virtually nothing in common. The book was a dark, broody affair set in a dystopian future. The film became an action vehicle designed to show off Arnold Schwarzenegger's *ahem* unique talents. In the near future, America is ruled with an iron fist, the masses controlled and manipulated by TV. The most popular show is The Running Man, a game show in which criminals are hunted down by "Stalkers" and killed on ...  Read the complete review

The year is 2019 and, sadly, the world's natural resources have run out. America has become a police state, and the state controls everything - entertainment, art, food. How they managed to get this past the US Constitution is, sadly, not explained. The highest rated TV show is The Running Man, a gameshow that pits convicted criminals against 'stalkers' - men trained to hunt down and kill the 'runners'. Few people have won the show; none have survived. Yet Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a man wrongly convicted of a massacre, is the next contestant - and he doesn't want to lose. Such is the premise of The Running Man, a film ...  Read the complete review

While I have yet to read the book by Stephen King, the film version of 'The Running Man' remains one of my favourite Schwarzenegger films - it's not in the same league as 'The Terminator', but it's still well-made and (to a point) a pretty credible film about a nightmare post-apocalyptic future and the struggle to throw off the shackles of authoritarian rule. The film is set just a few years into this century - humankind has used up virtually all of the world's natural resources,and government is in the hands of a faceless totalitarian cadre that maintains power by brute force, even as the people are starving on the streets. ...  Read the complete review