Film reviews: The Running Man, Keeper

Edgar Wright’s entire filmography is a love letter to media that defined him. That’s the most relatable thing with the British filmmaker who came onto my radar with the brilliant sitcom Spaced where Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes elevated Gen-X through the lens of how they perceived and consumed their culture. It was filled of visual references of films, books, tv shows, music, video games and pop culture details and it was a treat that embraced its origins, the DVD had a feature that pointed out every single reference while you were watching it.

Since then, Edgar Wright never stopped. He helmed the Cornetto Trilogy has an homage to his favourite horror, actions and sci-fi films. Scott Pilgrim Vs. World put forward the optimism of his and his next generation in the adaption of a comic book that in comics what Spaced had done in TV. Even his other genre films, Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho had direct concept references to films Wright grew up with. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, it helps that he is blessed by pristine sense of pacing and inventiveness. His films, even when they miss the mark ever so slightly, are an entertaining delight.

But what we can’t say is that he’s ever shown any inkling of a political side. So, adapting a Stephen King dystopian novel that had previously been made in the 80s as an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle is an interesting choice that both shows Wright’s strength and his very evident shortcomings.

Set in the future year of 2025, America is a hyper-corporate nightmare with a struggling population that is kept in check by mindless entertainment and the dream that one day someone will make it one of those reality shows and earn enough money to turn their lives upside-down. The main contest is The Running Man, a cat-and-mouse show in the real world where a contestant needs to survive 30 days without being caught, and killed, by the hunters. Enter Ben Richards (Glen Powell) a loose cannon of a man who keeps getting fired from jobs for insubordination and is now at the end of his rope with a very sickly daughter and a wife who works as a hostess in an environment that could be harmful to her. Ben applies to appear in any of the contests except The Running Man, but his physicality catches the eye of the network’s CEO Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) who convinces him that even surviving one week would pay his wife and daughter enough money to set them up for life.

As expected, the show is built to revamp its entertainment, even if at the expense of people’s lives. It’s not supposed to be fair. The show host Bobby T (Colman Domingo) feeds the audience a narrative that isn’t the real one, changing the positions of who is a villain and who isn’t, while the main hunter, the mysteriously hooded McCone (Lee Pace) serves as the final boss for Ben’s struggle.

In his journey, Ben bumps into a hidden network of revolutionaries who have been waiting for the opportunity to push their movement into the mainstream. This includes a weird recluse conspiracy theorist, Elton (Michael Cera), who is driven by a sense of revenge for what the government/network/police/economic system has done to his family. Eventually the message spreads like wildfire, and while the network works hard to portray Ben as a sociopathic villain, the lower classes are galvanised by his effort to stand up to the status quo.

One thing that we can say about Wright is that he speeds up the action to a sweet spot that never feels overwhelming nor too distracting. If anything, I think he holds himself back from zany and playful concept shots from his previous two films, probably a downside from working so closely in the studio system this time. But while his understanding of what makes good action good, and his love for the original film, helps to create an engaging piece of kinetic cinema, how he scratches the central message and the possibilities the story offers in our current political context is something very different.

It’s strange to see in 2025 a film with such an outdated vision of capitalism. The Running Man is a product of Reagan era when social division were being obscured by a corporate machine distracting the population. We live in the era of unchecked social media. Mr. Beast would make an unironic Running Man if he could get away with it. People are dying because they can’t afford treatments that are available. We live in a dystopia harsher and more unforgiving that the one Wright portrays here, and we know the blame isn’t in one soulless head figure but in a collective of capitalists, hedge fund managers, tech nerds and corrupt politicians who fund the same economic system that oppresses our generation. At least the people in Wright’s film, people go to dance clubs, with the price of a cocktail nowadays that must be nice.

But like the original was a catapult for Schwarzenegger, this new version feels like a way to establish Powell as a new action star, filling a gap that Tom Cruise left open. For the most part he does his job well. I like his charisma though he’s easily outclassed by Pace and Brolin when he shares a scene with them. He’s also too gentle and relaxed to sell the violent wild card the film asks, but he gets the dedicated dad demeanour to a T.

For its shortcomings, The Running Man is still an expected enjoyable experience. The political message stopped being relevant ten years ago and we have caught up with King’s vision of a grim future. What does it say about us on a meta level is probably an accident. Wright’s dedication to his influences is now his weakness, because he misses the have an introspective look at the insidiousness of our current system. But that needs a level of observation I doubt Wright is willing to bring.

Verdict: 3 out of 5
For everyone who liked the 80s film but believed it deserved a better filmmaker.

Keeper

Bookending 2025 with two Osgood Perkins films was the expected outcome for the prolific horror filmmaker who, despite the all the hype around him, hasn’t blown my mind yet.

I think part of my issue is that I struggled to see the connecting tissue between his films. On their own, they’re all fine pieces of work, but next to each other they don’t reveal much about the auteur behind them.

Oz Perkins, or Osgood Perkins, is horror royalty. The son of Anthony Perkins came into the scene in 2015 with The Blackcoat’s Daughter, a little supernatural thriller that neither wowed nor disappointed. Perfectly serviceable psycho horror.

It wasn’t until last year’s Longlegs that Perkins became the unexpected household name, becoming to indie outfit Neon what Ti West was to A24: a hard-working horror auteur with carte blanche to experiment as long as budget remains low and art value makes it stand out. Longlegs was fine. An iron-clad marketing campaign overpromised on its effectiveness, but Nicholas Cage had a good turn in his role, and I liked Perkins’ eye for atmosphere. Less than a year later he released The Monkey, a zanier and vastly less interesting turn that felt like a 90s straight-to-rental shlock but it has the gravitas of prestige indie horror.

So, in a way Keeper is still Perkins finding his voice, but if anything, the experience is now showing. Compared to his other films, Keeper has the confidence to be mysterious and creepy. He’s not trying to push for a scare but slowly build an atmosphere. All buoyed by a tremendous performance by Tatiana Maslany.

Like a lot of horror films, Keeper starts with a woman on a trip to a remote place with a man. Liz (Maslany) is finally visiting her boyfriend’s Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) cabin to celebrate their anniversary. It’s a perfect getaway, a beautiful modern mansion secluded deep into a forest, with barely any neighbours around apart from Malcolm’s weird cousin Darren (Birkett Turton). Little by little Liz starts noticing small things that are off, like Malcolm being very insistent she eats a particular chocolate cake, Malcolm’s date, who barely speaks English, leaving her with a weird warning, and the strange presences around the place.

Without spoiling much, because the sparce plot deserves to be discovered, it’s a ghost story with a twist. The film starts with a montage of women on a date, to whom something horrible about to happen. Women live with the pressure of finding a romantic stability in a man. Someone rich, classy, even if not emotionally available at least considerate. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to Liz and Darren’s date. Both women are there for similar reasons, though they pursue different things.

As the story progresses and the mystery thickens, Perkins never shows his whole hand. Even when at the end when he indulges into two long expositions monologue. He leaves a lot of the mystery unresolved to, which is perhaps lesson he learned from his previous films. A magician never reveals his tricks.

While Perkins is effective at creating a dense atmosphere, it all works because Maslany is so good as Liz. She’s never naif but you can see her character gives enough opportunities for this to work. There’s a moment near the end when she reaches a breaking point, which in a lesser film would’ve been discarded but here becomes an important plot point of a woman putting her foot down. Maslany interpolates Liz’s strong character by interpreting her quietly. She doesn’t chew the necessary, she softly nibbles at it.

Keeper marks a turning point in Perkins’ career. It’s a simple low budget set mostly in one place, with very simple practical effects. The ghosts, when finally revealed, feel real and tactile, which brings up the nightmare of it all. It’s not particularly scary but it does leave you with a feeling of uncomfortableness to deal with at the end, and very horror movies achieve that very effective note. Hours after I left the screening, I was still looking behind my shoulder in case something was moving in the dark. Hopefully not my demons.

Verdict: 4 out of 5
For everyone who has believed in the gospel of Osgood Perkins from the beginning, you are being vindicated.