![\"running](\"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/running_man-2.jpg\" "\\"running")
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Arnold Schwarzenegger is forced to take part in a game show in the near future where his life is at stake.\u00a0 No one has ever survived the game, but Schwarzenegger is determined to do just that, while rebelling against the corrupt system that landed him on the show.<\/p>\n
It seems that Richards was the muscle in the prison escape plan, seen early on carrying a steel girder and starting a diversionary fight with Kotto.\u00a0 But beyond that, he doesn’t seem to want anything to do with the escapees or their rebellion.\u00a0 He’s a self-made man, a survivor, but also a moral man who refuses orders to fire weapons on a crowd of unarmed civilians.<\/p>\n Naturally Schwarzenegger emphasizes the strongman aspects of the character while also fleshing out his wit and gallows humor.\u00a0 Good with a gun and quick with a comeback, Arnold as Richards is a killer hero with massive biceps, bigger balls, and a showman’s aptitude for audience empathy.<\/p>\n Amber plays both the heroine and the movie’s damsel-in-distress.\u00a0 She’s loud, largely annoying, strangely sexy, and tough as nails when she needs to be.\u00a0 She’s a fiery woman with a warrior spirit, so naturally there is some instant chemistry between herself and Richards, though their relationship remains on combative terms for most of the picture.<\/p>\n Kotto plays the leader in their little escape group, and contact man for the underground resistance.\u00a0 He plans their escape and remains coolheaded through much of their plight once on the actual show.\u00a0 Of course, while a physically strong man, one can hardly agree that he’d last long in a movie featuring Arnie as the main protagonist…<\/p>\n Weiss is the brains of the group.\u00a0 And by “brains”, I mean the hacker-type character present in many science fiction stories.\u00a0 What he lacks in physical adroitness, he more than makes up for in persistence and a talent with electronic devices.<\/p>\n It’s hard to imagine more perfect casting than Dawson as the film’s primary bad guy.\u00a0 A real life game show host, Dawson brings the goods and coats it with a layer of cruel sleaze, making him one of the genre’s most memorable villains ever.\u00a0 A class act villain all the way, one of his best moments comes after Arnold delivers his trademark “I’ll be back” lines.\u00a0 Killian responds, “Only in a rerun.”\u00a0 Fucking great.<\/p>\n Ventura comes dangerously close to stealing the show here, which is saved only by the ex-pro wrestler’s limited screen time.\u00a0 Playing the role as formerly great stalker, now more of a sports announcer, Captain Freedom still believes there is honor and glory to be found in a game of death.\u00a0 While he remains nostalgic of his own former glory, he also still works for Killian, with whom Freedom has an uncooperative relationship.<\/p>\n One of the more deadly Blaxploitation stars to come out of the era, Jim Brown is a no-brainer for and Arnold opponent.\u00a0 But like the rest of the stalkers, his own gimmick (here a flame-thrower) can be used against him.\u00a0 A grim killer, he takes satisfaction in knowing the game has no winners.<\/p>\n A behemoth with great strength and surprising grace on ice skates, Subzero is one of Arnold’s greatest foes.\u00a0 A showman to the core, he makes for a tremendous spectacle but in doing so underestimates his foes.\u00a0 Having Toru Tanaka, another ex-pro wrestler and bad guy henchman extraordinaire since Chuck Norris’s An Eye For An Eye<\/strong>, play one of the villains is as inspired as the rest of the movie is cheesy fun.\u00a0 Tanaka clearly has fun with the role, giving the “character” an intense glee at his trade a lesser “actor” wouldn’t have bothered bringing.<\/p>\n And speaking of having fun, Rethwisch is clearly enjoying playing this Stalker.\u00a0 A psychotic, incredibly strong killer with a penchant for hitting even his biggest fans, Buzzsaw is probably the deadliest of the lot.\u00a0 Well, aside from Captain Freedom.<\/p>\n Probably the most gimmicky of the Stalkers, he is the only one of them not to seemingly rely heavily on brute strength.\u00a0 He’s also the only one who gets a car.\u00a0 Singing opera and shooting electricity from his wrists, Dynamo is a hilariously over the top villain, bringing the enjoyment factor of The Running Man<\/strong> from a 10 to an 11.\u00a0 Clap if you love Dynamo!<\/p>\n We get men in tights for much of the movie, Jesse Ventura gaying it up in a hilarious infomercial, and Paula Abdul’s dance choreography during the show.\u00a0 So yeah, there’s plenty of dudesweat herein.<\/p>\n While foiling Arnold’s plans only found her in the same precarious situation as he, Maria Conchita Alonso doesn’t play a complete fool here.\u00a0 In fact, she’s generally very capable.\u00a0 She fights against men and manages to stand her own against them, killing a couple in the process.\u00a0 One expects a certain amount of skin-showing from the former Miss Venezuela, but the movie surprises us by keeping her body almost completely covered for the majority of the experience.<\/p>\n While not nearly as violent as some of Arnold’s previous films (and certainly not as bodycount-heavy as something like Total Recall<\/strong>), The Running Man<\/strong> still gives us plenty of bloody, gory endings to characters, making it one of his nastiest.\u00a0 We have people being cut in half by chainsaws, strangled with barbed-wire, thrown onto spiked walls, electrocuted, heads popping like balloons, blown up and shot to death.<\/p>\n Arnold only kills 14 people<\/a>, but since he’s the one behind the most grisly deaths, I’d say the numbers are more than adequate.\u00a0 For a complete breakdown of all the kills, go HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n Knowing full well he may be heading off to an early death by going onto the show, Arnold makes it known his intentions to begrudgingly follow the rules if only for a few more minutes.\u00a0 When the lawyer representing the show offers Schwarzenegger some insurance-waving papers for his signature, using his back to help Arnold literally sign away his life, our favorite Austrian plants a nice post script to his John Hancock by stabbing the pen through the paper and into the dumb bastard’s shoulder-blade.<\/p>\n Kinda makes signing with an ‘X’ seem a little pussy now, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n Arnie truly is the king of the one-liners.\u00a0 The Running Man<\/strong> offers some of his best (or worst, if you’re lame like that) work, including such gems like grabbing a guy by his dick and saying “Need a lift?” before tossing him over a railing to his death.\u00a0 He seems almost more philosophical in this movie as several of his lines are in question form, like he’s asking the victim if it’s okay if he kills them in the most humiliating fashion.\u00a0 After bursting open a flame-thrower’s fuel line and drenching its owner in the flammable juices, Arnold asks if he needs “a light” before tossing a lit flare in the poor guy’s lap. He’s going to kill them anyway, but it’s kind of funny to think about whether or not Arnold is actually concerned with the last thoughts of his victims.<\/p>\n But some lines go beyond one-liners, and Schwarzenegger makes full use of his angry, meat-eating, skull-crushing persona to come up with one that’ll induce fear and confusion\u00a0 in the recipricant, but total and unabashed joy in The Running Man<\/strong>‘s audience.\u00a0 Because Arnold knows that a good one-liner can alleviate the tension of a blood-spattered action scene like few other things in life, but a great corny line can live longer than even the most violent imagery.\u00a0 Because there are one-liners, and then there’s this:<\/p>\n [flashvideo filename=videos\/Ramfist.avi.FLV \/]<\/p>\n This line is made all the better if you’ve seen The Terminator<\/a>.\u00a0 Because as Brian Thompson’s character could attest (were he still alive), Schwarzenegger actually does that in his opening moments of the movie.<\/p>\n The Running Man<\/strong> is exactly what happens when Arnold Schwarzenegger takes over the control of a film.\u00a0 He runs wild here, making the movie less about whatever the hell the plot was supposed to be and more about killing people in brutal ways and spouting out post mortem one-liners.\u00a0 And I love it.\u00a0 While I could go into depth about how different the film is to the original Stephen King story (which is good; you should read it), this movie is an entirely separate entity and should be treated as such.<\/p>\n Released the same year as Predator<\/a>, The Running Man<\/strong> sets forth with the notion that since no single opponent (and apparently not even a literal army<\/a> of lower henchmen) can defeat Arnold, he must face off against several big opponents here to make the conflict even remotely believable.\u00a0 And what a group of villains!\u00a0 We have Blaxploitation legend and former runningback Jim Brown, ex-pro wrestler and Predator co-star Jesse Ventura (that’s right, we get an Arnie vs. Ventura battle!), frequent giant-Asian henchman Professor Toru Tanaka, and more!\u00a0 This isn’t just a fun action movie, it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. The World.<\/p>\n The plot (if you can even call it that) concerns prison escapee Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) attempting to flee the continental United States (now under totalitarian rule), taking with him a hostage (Maria Conchita Alonso).\u00a0 He is soon captured and forced to be a contestant on a game show hosted by Richard Dawson.\u00a0 Yaphet Kotto and Mick Fleetwood show up as rebels… so yeah, it’s fucking wacky.\u00a0 But in a good way.<\/p>\n Bennie E. Dobbins, who worked second unit in Commando<\/strong>, returns for the same duties here.\u00a0 And while former Starsky & Hutch<\/strong> star Paul Michael Glaser is listed as the director, it’s pretty clear producer Rob Cohen and Arnold Schwarzenegger are calling a lot of the shots.\u00a0 But despite being pulled in several directions at once, The Running Man<\/strong> ultimately succeeds in what it needs to do: provide a good time whilst simultaneously making Arnold Schwarzenegger look even more bad ass.\u00a0 As such, we get plenty of explosions, gun fights, chase sequences, and enough pithy lines to make Mr. Freeze blush.<\/p>\n So appropriately, it’s the Arnold show all the way through.\u00a0 The main villains may have their over the top entrances and side characters often get moments for slightly dramatic death scenes, the movie is all about how big, bad, tough, gruff, and totally macho its star is.\u00a0 Originally slated to be headlined by Dolph Lundgren, I honestly can’t see anyone but the Austrian Oak in this role.\u00a0 He’s a cigar-chomping, prison-breaking bad-ass who can rip bolted-down weight benches right out of the floor with people still on them, fight chainsaw-wielding motorcycle baddies unarmed, and goes from a musclebound fugitive trying to escape from a corrupt system and distracted populace to a god-like warrior, facing off against the Man.\u00a0 He becomes the leader of the rebellion, a martyr and a king all at once, like a 1980s Jesus with a machine gun.<\/p>\n![\"Sly](\"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/2-2.jpg\" "\\"Sly")
<\/a><\/p>\nArnold Schwarzenegger is Ben Richards<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMaria Conchita Alonso is Amber Mendez<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nYaphet Kotto is William Laughlin<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMarvin J. McIntyre is Harold Weiss<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
THE VILLAINS:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRichard Dawson is Damon Killian<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
THE STALKERS<\/span>:<\/span><\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nJesse Ventura is Captain Freedom<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nJim Brown<\/span> is Fireball<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nProfessor Toru Tanaka is Subzero<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGus Rethwisch<\/span> is Buzzsaw<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nErland Van Lidth is Dynamo<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
[THE SEX AND VIOLENCE]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO:<\/span><\/h3>\n
EXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMURDER BY NUMBERS: [ 45 ]<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n[THE BEST OF THE REST]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
EPIC MOMENT:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBEST LINE:<\/span><\/h3>\n
[THE EXECUTION]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
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