Am I mistaken, or has Gal Gadot fallen from portraying one of the big three of the DC lineup, to becoming the poster girl of starring in underwhelming streaming premiers? This isn’t even a cheap shot at her politics or some of the viral criticisms of her acting skills – the woman has literally gone from embodying Wonder Woman in a bunch of movies to appearing in pointless guff like The Runner in seemingly no time at all. As you can already guess by the non-glowing terms I’ve used to describe her new film on Amazon, its the usual mixture of high concept/low interest action thriller that’s seemingly created to pad out an algorithm – but while I’m fairly used to seeing Gadot in these sorts of things now (I guess Diana Prince is hanging with a different sort of amazon these days), that doesn’t mean I’m not dismayed by the sight of some other names in the credits that I thought were above such tripe.
Maia Marten is a high end prosecutor based in London who not only has to juggle raising Noah, her diabetic son, but also has to find time to indulge in her great love – running. That’s right, never mind that she’s just dropped Noah off at school and has a massive court appearance planned to try and bring down notorious crime boss, Tommy Boyd, nothing stops Maia from stretching those long legs and getting in a few miles before the day properly starts. However, while jogging, she receives a call from her son’s phone from a mysterious man who is about to turn her run into a runaround.
Informed by this sinister voice that her phone has been hacked and Noah has been kidnapped and pumped with enough insulin to put him in a diabetic coma, it issues some demands that Maia has to follow to the letter if she even wants to see her little boy alive again. After guiding her to a dumpster to pick up a gun, the prosecution lawyer gets her orders – she has an hour to run all the way to the Excelsus Hotel where her star witness is being kept under police guard, and shoot him to declare Boyd’s trial null and void. While it’s never truly explained why the villain wants his prospective assassin to try and kill someone after being utterly knackered out after running for a full hour (I could barely kill a moth after spending five minutes on a treadmill these days), Maia sets off on her long journey through London where she’s constantly fighting her way through various mishaps.
Be it getting hit by a car, forcing her way through the thick crowds at Camden, or having her phone pickpocketed while trying to take a short cut on the underground, we’re with our sweaty heroine every step of the way. But even if she makes it to her destination within the tight time limit, can she actually bring herself to shoot a man in cold blood with her son’s life on the line? Talk about getting run ragged…
If I had to try and explain the plot of The Runner in the quickest and most direct way possible, I suppose I could describe it as Run Lola Run meets Speed – although I hesitate to use the word “speed” when the average MPH the film achieves is around about 8. Taking the stance of tense, real-time thriller, that sees its put-upon lead have to jump through the same hoops as John McClane and Harry Callahan when they’re required to hot-foot it through a bustling city at the whims of a phone-based madman, what The Runner should be is a knuckle-gnawing exercise in unbearable tension – but the only thing I seem to see getting any exercise here is Gal Gadot’s glutes. However, while the film seemingly goes out of its way to conclusively prove that it’s main actress simply isn’t that much of a draw when she’s not wearing a gold tiara and a glowing lasso, it’s the presence of both Kevin Macdonald and Damian Lewis that really takes the breath out of our underworked lungs.
I understand that, as an actor, Lewis has to take roles to earn a living, no matter how good a thespian he is, but even so his preening, cocaine-nailed villain sees him leaning so far into the more panto aspects of playing a bad guy, that he might as well be voicing an animated character with all the breathy, bad guy tropes he’s overusing. Similarly, as a director, Macdonald once gave us the riveting The Last King Of Scotland, so seeing him offer up sub-par thrills on the run is actually quite disappointing, especially when you realise that both the film and it’s script have no real idea how to properly utilise its concept, or it’s location – which for a film like this is pretty fatal. Other movies that have seen its heroes stuck in a constant phase of movement tend to make the city itself one of main characters, having weirdos and eccentrics pop in and out of the adventure to add extra spice to the action. One film that does that wonderfully is little-seen action masterpiece, Night Of The Juggler that gives you a cross section of New York lunacy that positively breathes – but in comparison, Gadot’s tour de London ends up being horribly bland as all everyone she ever meets seem to do is gawp at the lithe form whizzing by, or simply just yell “Oi!” in a clumsy voice over.
However, while the film tries to make the sight of a woman jogging through London interesting by throwing random shit in her path, and then have Lewis’ disembodied voice crow about her tormented past, Gadot simply doesn’t have the presence or acting chops to actually keep us locked into her plight for the full 84 minutes. Oh, she handles the physical aspects of the film with aplomb, but whenever the story requires her to do more than just pump those legs and avoid incredulous pedestrians, the actress trips and falls all over the place. Her outpourings for her emperiled son feel amusingly like we’re watching someone discover that someone’s dented their car, and rather than feeling empathy for a mother in despair, you’ll find yourself snickering more than once.
However, while logic is not exactly a prerequisite for these kinds of films, I’m still not entirely sure why a string-pulling master manipulator would actually want his human puppet to run solidly for an entire hour in order to keep her compliant. If you don’t want her communicating with anyone, maybe don’t have her run through one of the busiest cities on the face of the earth around the time of the morning rush hour. It’s this sort of sloppy reasoning that makes The Runner such a chore to keep up with, and it isn’t even bad-good enough to even invoke any accidental enjoyment, despite Gadot’s blanky grandiose line readings giving any detractors yet more ammo beyond delivering viral “Kal-El, no!” impersonations.
A high concept action thriller is instantly hobbled by the fact that no one involved seems to be able to elevate material that seems to have been written in crayon. The lead, the gimmick, the setting – all are bungled as The Runner lopes into last place.
Jog on.
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Where to watch The Runner: