The Running Man (1987)

Title: The Running Man (1987)

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Cast: Arnold Schwarznegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Jesse Ventura

Review:

So since I’m still on a revolutionary role here after the success of VIVA LA REVOLUTION, I decided to post my review for The Running Man, a film that also has a rebellious streak to it. It was made at the time when Arnold Schwarznegger’s career was in full swing. He’d already made The Terminator, the two Conan films, Commando and Predator. He was well on his way towards becoming the cinematic legend that he is. The Running Man isn’t exactly Arnolds best film, but it has a deliciously rebellious aura to it that I enjoyed.

Arnold, the rebellious convict

In the year 2019, the world’s economy is in shambles and the United States has turned into a totalitarian dystopia. To appease the masses, the government runs a show called The Running Man, the most successful television show ever aired. The show consists of giving convicts the opportunity to win full pardons if and only if they survive being hunted down by the “Stalkers”, killers who are paid to hunt and kill the convicts. Enter Ben Richards; a convict who was wrongly accused. He is an innocent man and he knows it so he will stop at nothing to escape the stalkers and win his pardon. He also intends to stop the sadistic show from ever going on the air again.

A lot of these rebellious films have their main character start out as part of the government machine, then, for whatever reason they are betrayed by the government they work for and suddenly have to run from them. Suddenly, instead of working for the system, these types of characters become ‘enemies of the state’. Usually, they start the film out as police men or soldiers of the government and are happy to be working for them, until the tables turn and the main character feels the oppression and the lies for themselves. He or she finally tastes first hand the heel of the governments boot stomping them square in the face. You can find characters like these in such films as Equilibrium, Logan’s Run, and the film I’ll be talking about today, The Running Man.

In The Running Man Schwarznegger plays Ben Richards, a military pilot who refuses to open fire on a crowd of civilians who are protesting for food. “All they want is some food for Christ sake!” yells Ben, while the government orders him to kill all the protesters. His refusal to obey the governments’ orders earns him exclusive reservations at the state penitentiary. He manages to escape with the help of a motley crew of rebels and from there on in he literally becomes the running man, always running away from government officials, running for his freedom. You see, in the film, the government uses the media to make it look like Ben actually did open fire on all those civilians. They even named him the ‘Butcher of Bakersfield’. So, with the government and the rest of society against him, he runs. It’s no surprise that freedom is often times associated with running for it, escaping to some peaceful location; free from the choke hold of ‘the system’. Films like Vanishing Point (1971) Logan’s Run (1976) and even Easy Rider (1969) show us this. These films are filled with characters running from the authorities in search of their own personal freedom.

The Running Man comments on the media and how easily the masses are swayed by it. The people are addicted to The Running Man, they form groups in front of giant television screens that are reminiscent of the tele-screens that Big Brother would bark his orders from in Orwell’s 1984. The audience loves the violence; they love to see the Stalkers kill the convicts in gruesome ways. And they eat up all of the lies that the shows host, Damon Killian, tells them. The movie shows how easily the masses can be controlled with television and media. At one point in the film the cheer for the Stalkers and the next, they are cheering for Ben. At one point the adore Killian, and the next they want to rip him to shreds.

By the way, Damon Killian is one sleaze ball of a character! Casting former Family Feud host Richard Dawson to play Damon Killian was a brilliant move. I mean, lets face it, Richard Dawson was the game show host that everyone loved to hate. In my opinion during his Family Feud days, Dawson always had that sleazy quality to him that translated perfectly to the equally sleazy Killian a character who loves the publics attention, and he knows how to manipulate them, a quality he uses to full advantage in the film. By the way, this film kind of does the same kind of fake television commercials we saw in Robocop. There’s one for a show called ‘Climbing for Dollars’ in which we see a guy climbing a rope for some money that’s hanging at the top of the rope, only to fall down to a pack of rabid dogs. Once again showcasing the publics fascination with the morbid, kind of like the same principle we saw in shows like Fear Factor where we would delight in seeing others putting themselves in danger.

But don’t mistake The Running Man for a deep meaningful film. Essentially, after Ben Richards becomes part of The Running Man show, the movie turns into a silly cat and mouse game with the stalkers chasing after the convicts. Each stalker has a special ability. Fireball flies with a jet pack and uses a flamethrower. Dynamo sings opera as he shoots lightning bolts out of his special suit, Buzzsaw drives a motorcycle and wields a chainsaw at the same time and finally, Subzero plays ice hockey with exploding pucks! Unfortunately, the fun is taken right out of these characters because they each get wiped out by Arnold and his buddies in zero point five seconds. The director Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky of Starsky and Hutch!) really didn’t take his time in making these battle sequences special. At all. I mean what’s the use of coming up with these characters if your going to kill them in five seconds? It was really a wasted opportunity if you ask me. In a movie that is supposed to be filled with violence, and we are supposed to be repelled by how violent people have turned, there is not much of it. At least not on screen.

The film was based on a Stephen King novel of the same name, but no one, not even the films producers knew about this while making the film because King printed that novel under his pseudonym Richard Bachman and at the time, no one knew that Bachman was really King in disguise. Lot’s of changes where made from book to screen, originally the game takes place all over the world, and the runner could go to any part of the world, and the stalker would follow him wherever he went. Ben Richards was a family man, participating in the game only out of necessity because he had just lost his job. King himself feels that Arnold portrayed the character in a diametrically opposite way to the one he wrote. What you get in this movie is Arnold being Arnold. And you know what that means: one liners galore! He sometimes says a joke right before he kills somebody and sometimes after, and sometimes both! They had me cracking up through out the whole film.

Weirdest thing about this movie? Its all about rebellion, but in the film Arnold’s character isn’t much of a rebel. Yes, he sides with the rebels and helps them out, but as he says in the film “I’m not into politics, I’m into survival” which was kind of funny to hear Arnold say since he is at the time I write this the governor of California. He tells them that their opinion isn’t very popular these days and that they talk too much and do very little. I kind of see where they were going with these comments. These are very common accusations made at rebel camps. They are never organized, they dont have a leader, and they don’t do what they should be doing. I kind of agree with the guy. Still, in this film, the rebels win, so we can add this one to the list of films in which fictional revolutionaries beat the system!

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Expendables (2010)

Title: The Expendables (2010)

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Writers: Sylvester Stallone, David Callahan

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lungdren, Jet Li, Eric Roberts, Bruce Willis, Charisma Carpenter, Arnold Schwarznegger, Randy Couture, Steve Austin

Review:

The Expendables to me, was a celebration of 80’s awesomeness. I didn’t get to see it upon its initial release, because the damn recession is holding me back from going to the movies as much as I’d like. Sad but true. But finally when I saw the box at the video store, I swear I heard a choir of angels singing as I reached for the dvd and rented it! I was finally gonna get to see this bombastic explosion of 80’s style action. But the question remained: would it disappoint? Or would it be a great film? At the very least, I expected the film to be fun. I mean, seeing all these action stars up there was gonna be a treat no matter what my expectations for the film were.

Story goes something like this: Stallone is the leader of a group of mercenaries that call themselves The Expendables. They go around taking missions and getting paid huge amounts of cash for doing them. They kill terrorists, save hostages, you know the drill. Well, one day a guy called Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) offers The Expendables a mission. They are to go and kill a dictator named General Garza. When they get there, they realize that what they really want to do is help the rebels fight against the dictator and the men who manipulate him. Will they succeed in their mission?

I enjoyed this movie far more than I thought I would. It wasn’t a perfect film, it had its glitches here and there, but for the most part I really dug everything about this movie! Especially the themes it’s playing with. Let me tell you guys a little something about the island of Puerto Rico, where I reside. In our last elections, a new governor was chosen to rule over our land. Everyone had high hopes for this guy because the previous one had driven the country to poverty, having to close down schools and government offices for months on end. But hey, it was the beginning of the recession and anyone governing the island during those years would have had a hard time doing it anyways. So in comes this new guy offering to do things right, offering the proverbial “change” that everybody needs. So of course he won the elections. Everyone put their trust in him to make things right, to work for the people, to work for our interests. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Once in power, he fired more than 30,000 government employees and used the police force and the national guard to instill fear upon the masses by having them hit anyone and spray pepper spray on anyone who dares complain or exercise their right to speak up against the oppression. He is the kind of polititian that feels more like a businessman than a politian. This is a guy who doesn’t really care about running a country, his priorities seem to be making money, Nixon style. Hell, many have compared the guy to Hitler himself. I don’t believe there has been a more hated governor in the history of Puerto Rico, and believe me, we’ve had our share of assholes in command.

So when I see a film like The Expendables, where it criticizes this kind of abuse of power, it makes me happy to see somebody notices. I saw a documentary a while back on Jamaica called Life and Debt (2001) that showed how Americans got their hotels and their resorts in one part of the island, and now Jamaicans themselves need to have a special card to go into that section of the island. How fucked up is that? Jamaicans themselves can’t go into the exclusive American section of the island? What gives? Sad to say I am seeing the same thing developing in our own island of Puerto Rico. Tourists visit only the capital of Puerto Rico, where the grand majority of the hotels are at, while the government is making it increasingly more difficult for locals to go to that area. Now, don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t hate Americans or anything, my motto is the same one that Jackie Moon had in Semi-Pro (2008) E.L.E. Everybody Love Everybody! But seriously, this situation makes me want to puke! The situation in Jamaica is freaking sad! Governments know that tourists can bring money to the island, so they sacrifice everything else for that?? The rest of the island is falling apart! You should see how many local businesses have closed down, how many buildings are abandoned. It’s an alarming amount. Yet foreign companies like Wal-Mart and Burlington Coat Factory thrive. There is a Walgreens literally on every corner of my town (literally) while I’ve seen more then one local pharmacy go down.

So hurray for The Expendables and hurray for Stallone in wanting to shed some light on this type of behavior. I thought it was extremely interesting how the island under the dictatorship in the film is unnamed and fictional; it could probably represent Puerto Rico and Jamaica or any other country in which the same situation is happening. I identified with the character of Sandra, the revolutionary who wants to stay and fight against the evil dictators and businessmen, to fight for the freedom of her people. There is one awesome scene in which Eric Roberts (representing big business) tells General Galarza “I own you” and basically lets him know that he has to do whatever Big Business tells him to, because the funding comes from them. And of course, I love the fact that the good guys realize this is all wrong and that something has to be done about it. This let’s me know that The Expendables has its heart in the right place, at least these guys are killing and blowing shit up to stand up for what is freaking right! An action movie with a conscience! Holy shit that’s unheard of! Let’s not forget that Jason Statham stands up for women’s rights as well, defending the love of his life from an abusive boyfriend. Hurray for this movie yet again.

But let’s face it, we came here to have some fun and I gotta say I had tons of that! What I enjoyed the most was the dialog believe it or not. These guys are all aging action stars (most of them anyway) and they have a history behind them of action films. What I loved about this movie was how they kept referencing their personal lives and their film careers through the dialog of the film. Example: when Arnold Scharznegger walks into the film and he and Stallone meet we are led to believe that they are both leaders of different mercenary groups and that at one time, they worked together. Translation? “We both used to be action stars at one point”. Arnold says he doesn’t need the gig so he is giving the mission to Stallone and his crew. The dialog that follows that conversation goes something like this:

Arnold: “Give this job to my friend here, he LOVES playing in the jungle, right?

Stallone: Right.

Arnold: Hey, how about dinner?

Stallone: When?

Arnold: In a thousand years?

Stallone: Too Soon.

Bruce Willis: What’s his problem?

Stallone: He wants to be the president.

In this conversation, the animosity that Arnold and Stallone had during the 80’s is alluded to. You remember how it was right? They use to make fun of each other in their respective movies. They kind of acknowledged each others existence and were willing to make fun of each other, but they still kind of hated each others guts. I always got the idea that it was all in good fun anyways, this movie proves it. And the line “he loves playing in the jungle” is an obvious reference to Stallone’s Rambo films. And then the two go on about weight, and Stallone tells Arnold, “whatever weight I loss you found pal” And the film goes on and on like that. Speaking of Arnold’s participation in this film, it is so freaking robotic. He kind of like walked through the scene not even trying to act, he had this silly grin on his face the whole time, honestly people? To me, Arnold was the worst thing about this whole movie, and in all honesty, that whole scene (though kind of funny) was terrible because the dialog felt robotic. I almost got the feeling like none of the actors were actually together; it felt as if they all filmed their scenes separately; the one sour note in an otherwise great flick.

Its all in good fun!

Speaking of performances, I was amazed to find out that the best actor in the whole film ended up being Dolph Lungdren. Man, Lungdren is a better actor now then he ever was! EVER. The guy hasn’t stopped acting and let’s not forget he directs his own films, so as far as I’m concerned, the guy is still very much in his game. Lungdren has actually gotten better with age! Holy shit, he was devouring his scenes, making all the other action stars including Stallone himself look bad. There is this moment in which Mickey Rourke shows up and tells this story, it is a small part, which can be considered a cameo, but damn, he really gave it his all. Kind of makes you wonder what’s a real actor with some real acting talent doing in the midst of all these action guys, who’s one specialty is kicking, punching and blowing shit up? Lungdren and Rourke both surprised me, and stood out like a cockroaches in a chicken dance.

Statham, taking action to a whole other level!

I liked that fun vibe the film had; it reminded me of the silly premises and ideas that we used to see in films of the 80’s. I mean, seeing these guys flying around on a plane, as if they were this special team of rebels going up against the evils of the world, I kind of got the feeling I was watching another version of the A-Team. Cigar chomping tough guys with secret handshakes, beautiful women, fighting over who kills the best and who kills the fastest.

Stallone, behind the camera, directing

It seems to that with this film, Stallone is passing the torch to Statham as the current king of action films, not a bad assessment. The film ends with Statham and the rest of the crew relaxing at Mickey Rourke’s tattoo shop (makes perfect sense for his character to have one don’t it?) having a knife throwing contest, all the other action stars kind of miss, but Statham ends up winning, perfectly hitting the middle of the mark with the knife. It’s as if Stallone was saying “this is the guy who’s taken my place okay and I give him my blessing” Plus, its obvious Stallone likes Statham. Statham is the one with the most screen time out of all the action guys and hes always next to Stallone through out the whole film. Hell, he is next to him in the freaking poster. So, according to Stallone, Statham is this generation king of action films.

"So you want it to say Schwarznegger sucks? You Sure?"

Final words: fun times. Storyline might be generic cause we’ve seen this story of the good guys going against the oppressive government before, but hey, guess what? This type of thing is still happening in the world, so it’s freaking relevant. We need some real revolutionaries NOW, but whatever, till they arrive, I guess we got The Expendables to take care of business and make things right, at least in the film world.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5

Red Sonja (1985)

Title: Red Sonja (1985)

Director: Richard Fleischer

Cast: Arnold Schwarznegger, Brigitte Nielsen, Sandahl Bergman, Ernie Reyes Jr.

Review:

Robert E. Howard was a famous fantasy writer who was most known for creating the Conan Universe. He wrote many adventures featuring Conan the Barbarian for years. The character even got his own comic book series, thanks to the guys at Marvel Comics. Those series of comics spawned a character which many incorrectly associate as one of Robert E. Howard’s creations, when in reality the character has its roots in the comic book universe. I speak of Red Sonja. You see folks, what many don’t seem to know is that Red Sonja comes to us thanks to comic books! Yesiree, Red Sonja comes to us thanks to comic book writer Roy Thomas and comic book illustrator Barry Windsor Smith. Red Sonja was a character created solely in the comic book world. Her first appearance was in Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian #23. Red Sonja, as a character, has never really died. There are currently a couple of comic book series being made with Red Sonja as the main character. One of them is Queen Sonja from Dynamite Comics. Robert Rodriguez is looking to produce a new Red Sonja movie in the near future. But during the 80s it was the popularity of the Conan movies that got Red Sonja her own feature film in 1985. How was it?

Red Sonja's origins are firmly rooted on comic books

Story goes something like this: Evil Queen Gedren is out to get control of a device called The Talisman. This Talisman is said to have been used by “the creator” (are we talking about God here?) to make the universe. It is said that this Talisman can either create or destroy a world via earthquakes and storms. So logically, Queen Gedren being the power hungry tyrant that she is wants it all to herself. Problem is, she doesn’t know that The Talisman’s powers can get out of control! Good thing that one of the priestesses that protects The Talisman sent a message to Red Sonja so that she would make sure that The Talisman is properly destroyed, so it wont fall into the wrong hands. Will Sonja be able to find and destroy the Talisman?

 The cult that protects The Talisman

There are a couple of problems with this movie for me. First, the story is a disaster. It’s so silly, so simplistic that it would insult the intelligence of a monkey. We don’t even get to know who Red Sonja is before she goes galloping on to her adventure. Her origin story is told in a fast forward sequence that seems to have been compiled of a bunch of discarded or deleted scenes that they didn’t have time to include in the film. So what we end up seeing is a quickie version of Sonja’s origin story. On this flashback sequence, we see glimpses of Sonja’s hometown being destroyed, of Sonja being raped, and of Sonja receiving magic powers from some sort of benevolent spirit all in the course of less than five minutes. That’s one thing I enjoyed about the first Conan movie. It took its time to show us Conan’s past in an awesome extended opening sequence. Not so with Red Sonja which seems more interested in getting to “the good stuff” than showing us any character development. So Sonja is given sword wielding powers by some forest spirit we never even get a good look at. And just who is this spirit, and why does she choose Sonja to give her these supernatural sword wielding abilities? Who the heck knows, neither the director nor the writers cared enough to let us in on it. I guess it’s up to us to bestow this forest spirit with a name and a reason.

Even though she received supernatural sword prowess, Sonja still needs to train.

So is this a film that exists within the Conan Universe or not? It feels to me like it was actually trying to distance itself from the Conan Universe. Arnold Schwarznegger is on this film, but he doesn’t play Conan, he plays a character called Kalidor. Who the hell is Kalidor? And why does he look and act like Conan? When I was watching this movie as a kid, I didn’t care, to me he was Conan having an adventure with Red Sonja. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was confused by this. Anyhow, Kalidor is a wanderer, simply going around the world looking for his next adventure when suddenly, Sonja and the whole Talisman deal falls on his lap and, Kalidor being the good guy that he is decides to tread along with this motley crew of adventurers. I mean, literally, a lady falls on his lap asking for his help to find Sonja so they could destroy The Talisman. It has been reported that Schwarznegger agreed to be on this movie only out of respect for its producers, he really didnt want to be on this one, and it shows. His "acting" is some of the worst of his career and he knows it. On the films premiere his own wife told him "if this movie doesnt kill your career, nothing will". Arnold agreed to be on this film, but only as a secondary character, yet he ended up getting top billing for this, this was something he resented when he saw his name on the films credits and promotional material. In a way, he plays Sonja's sidekick, following her, making sure she survives her journey. 

After that, it’s a journey through a strange and mysterious land filled with giant skeletons that form bridges, Kingdoms that are ruled by children, and a cave that harbors a giant mechanical snake. By the way, this giant mechanical snake that Red Sonja and Kalidor fight off is the high point of the film. Unfortunately, after that it’s all downhill for this movie. It doesn’t get any better than the giant mechanical snake. Then it turns into one of those movies where the good guys have to enter the bad guys castle and ends with the good guys exiting the castle and the castle turning into rubble. I cannot tell you just how many fantasy movies end with the bad guys castle either burning to a crisp or crumbling apart. Krull (1983) being the first one to come to mind. Red Sonja is a movie that is so cliché filled that we even finish the movie with Kalidor and Red Sonja kissing and horse back riding into the sunset! And just how many movies do you know where we see the villain falling to their death in a fiery pit below? Way too many that’s how many! So be ready for a cliché filled movie.

How do we know this is a cheesy b-movie? Well, for starters, Red Sonja wears make up, Queen Gedren wears a nightgown through out the whole movie, she looks like she is getting ready to go for a night out with the girls to the local night club or something. She even wears leather pants and high heels for crying out loud. She walks around her castle clicking her high heels like there’s no tomorrow. Queen Gedren is played by Sandahl Bergman, if you guys remember correctly, Sandahl Bergman was the actress who played Valeria, Conan’s romantic interest in Conan The Barbarian. She was actually offered the role of Red Sonja but turned it down because she didn’t want to be typecast as the goody little two shoes all the time. So, she got the role of Queen Gedren, the tyrant. How will the audience not recognize that the villain in this film was actually the same actress who played Valeria in Conan? Well, the filmmakers got Red Sonja to give Queen Gedren a scar on her face, so through out the whole film Queen Gedren wears a mask. The real reason for the mask is so we wont recognize Sandahl Bergman.

On to the movies themes. Red Sonja is commonly looked upon as a silly sword and sorcery movie, and you would be correct if you saw Red Sonja under that light. But it does have a hint of “meaning” to it if you look past its idiotic dialog. Number one is The Talisman device. This device, which is a green glowing sphere, has the power to create or destroy a world. Red Sonja was made during the mid 80s, a time when most Americans feared a nuclear holocaust. Everyone was afraid that the Americans and the Russians would collectively blow each other out existence with weapons of mass destruction. Hence, we get the Talisman device on Red Sonja which is actually referred to as a weapon in the film. So the film plays with that fear of complete annihilation. One of Queen Gedren’s own lackeys is constantly reminding her how The Talisman will soon be too powerful for her to control. How if they continue to use it “There will be no world!” But Gedren, being the power hungry tyrant that she is doesn’t give a damn. So there’s a hint of a theme in this movie after all. But it aint much. There is the whole them of rape. Sonja hates men because she was raped, but through her adventures, side by side with Kalidor, she learns that not all men are evil. She soon learns to leave the past behind, and let some love come into her life.

The movie also gets a bit of heat because some feel that it makes homosexuality seem evil. Queen Gedren destroys Red Sonja’s village because she wanted Sonja for herself, and Sonja rejected her. To some, this might seem like its showing homosexuality in a bad light because the villain in the film is a lesbian. But to me, that logic makes no sense. A person can be a villain no matter what its sexual orientation is, so I don’t agree with that point of view.

Last words about Red Sonja. I don’t think this movie is all that bad. Yeah, it has some bad dialog. Yeah Arnold considers it to be the lowest point in his career. Yeah it has two main actors who can’t speak English very well (Arnold is from Austria while Nielsen is from Denmark) and yeah the story is silly as hell, but it’s still a fun movie in my book. The dialog is laugh inducing, and the acting? Well, let’s just say that I agree with Arnold. Both actors were delivering their lines in the most robotic way possible! The ending in which Conan (I mean Kalidor!) finally conquers Red Sonja and manages to give her a kiss, it is the coldest most unnatural kiss you are apt to see on any movie! I mean, you could tell these two didn’t want to kiss at all. But whatever, its still in a way part of the whole Conan Universe, and it does have cool looking sets. Speaking of expensive looking sets, it boggles the mind how producers spent so much money on Red Sonja when it had such a horrible script. Millions spent on this? Damn. But, I guess Hollywood has never had a problem  spending millions. They are currently spending more of those millions right now making a new Conan film. Hopefully it will be good (I’m crossing my fingers here) and hopefully it will reignite interest in the Conan Universe. We just might see that proposed Red Sonja feature with Rose McGowan as Red Sonja and Robert Rodriguez directing/producing. Maybe then we will get a Red Sonja movie that doesn’t have to be looked upon as a guilty pleasure.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Posters for the upcoming Conan remake and the proposed Red Sonja remake