The Runner Review

"The Runner," which came out this weekend, is unrelated to "Runner, which comes out next weekend. Both are action thrillers, but only the former has Gal Gadot in yoga pants doing a lot of running. So if sweat-drenched workout clothes are your thing, then I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my site being in your browser history alongside whatever else you look at. You sicky.

Gadot stars as Maia, a successful laywer who's latest client is about to link some big crime lord to a double-homicide of two young women. The trial date is today, and what better way to prepare then to go on a run. After dropping her diabetic son off at school, she has hardly broken a sweat when she gets a call from his phone. But it's not her offspring on the other end, but a mysterious man. She naturally doesn't believe him, until she hears her son say this nice unknown man is going to take him out for ice cream. Someone clearly hasn't ever seen an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and it shows.

What does the caller want? He wants her to shoot her client, so that his employer can walk free. He gives her rules, like not talking to anyone, must travel by foot, but most pressing is a short one hour time limit, or else her son will die. Oh, violence against kids, is there anything more tasteless?

So she races off. It's a good few miles to the hotel where her client awaits the courts, and every single gimmick you can think of, so did writer Mark Gibson. Someone steals her phone, she gets hit by a car, she falls down, the works. She also breaks every rule she's given, though it mostly ends up as an excuse for her to run inside a train, and then on the train tracks. At one point, the caller tells her "rules are meant to be broken." Then why even bother with the rules in the first place?!

For a film Amazon Prime claims is an action thriller, there is very little action. Most of the runtime consists of Maia running in the crowded streets of London, while talking to the unknown man through her headphones. You would think some bystander would hear her conversation and contact the authorities, and the script's answer is to have every single person in the city glued to their phones. Well, except the homeless. And the cops. And children, oh and a priest, because the filmmakers decided we needed little detour in a church. Just what all films need.

I will say, the creative and relentless way things just keep happening to our heroine is amusing, and I did find myself wondering just what else they could possibly throw at her. Director 

Kevin Macdonald shows some flair by having us see Maia running from behind, then through a shop window, or from a distance, though the camera did seem to linger a bit too long on her backside at times. Then he gets in his own way by periodically showing Gadot's face in this awkward freeze-frame, and I'm sorry, but she simply isn't a strong enough actress to carry emotions, or scenes, by her mug alone. This is a woman whose only kid is being threatened, and she constantly stares ahead with the same level of wide-eye indifference.

But Macdonald is just as much to blame for the subpar acting, however. It is the director's job to make the film they want, and I honestly doubt "The Runner" ended up how anyone dreamt. Some of the more hectic moments are just clumsy, like unfinished CGI or shoddy bluescreen. One scene in particular, when our lead leaps out of the way of speeding train, grabbing onto a chain linked fense for safety. It should be thrilling, but it is so oddly filmed, acted and edited that I laughed loudly, and Amazon Prime most certainly didn't label this a comedy.

I can't be all that hard on Gadot though, as it's not like she's given much to work with. She plays a single working mom, and her case revolves around senseless violence towards women. Her backstory is even less savory: she shot her dad after he kept beating her mom. I get that these events are what made her into the heroic lead she is today, but why can't she just be heroic from the start? And don't get me started on the subplot concerning her lack of a social life. The caller man, who has hacked into her phone and computers, finds images (no doubt Photoshopped) of Wonder Woman herself half-naked, intended for a would-be lover. Maybe a male writer and director aren't the most knowledgeable when it comes to making a female-led film?