Nov. 18, 2025

Midweek Mention... The Running Man (1987)

Midweek Mention... The Running Man (1987)
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Arnold Schwarzenegger in a yellow jumpsuit, a murderous game show, and more terrible puns than should be legal – this week we’re diving into The Running Man (1987).

Set in the far-flung future of… 2017, the film drops Arnie into a fascist police state where the government keeps the masses quiet with a wildly popular TV bloodsport. Framed as the “Butcher of Bakersfield,” helicopter pilot Ben Richards is forced onto The Running Man, a gladiatorial game show hosted by the gloriously slimy Damon Killian. Contestants are hunted by cartoonishly lethal “Stalkers” – Subzero, Buzzsaw, Dynamo, Fireball and Captain Freedom – while the state-run network lies, edits, and fakes everything to keep the ratings high.

We break down:

  • The dystopia that arrived on time: State propaganda, rigged media, and how close this feels to modern reality TV and news spin.
  • Arnie at full one-liner power: From exploding collars to chainsaw crotch kills, we go through the kills, the quips, and which puns are genuinely elite and which are plain zero.
  • The Stalkers as 80s boss fights: Subzero’s razor-wire demise, Buzzsaw’s split decision, Dynamo’s opera-singing sex pest energy, and Fireball’s jet-pack nonsense.
  • Killian and the cult of TV personalities: Why Richard Dawson nails the smarmy game-show host, and how the film weaponises studio audiences and phone-in contests.
  • From Stephen King to Saturday-night carnage: How this loose adaptation trashes the bleak Richard Bachman novel, leans into gaudy satire, and still manages to feel weirdly ahead of its time with doctored footage and media manipulation.

If you grew up on 80s action, misremember this as a Verhoeven movie, or just want to hear three dads argue over whether this is genius satire or glorious trash, this one’s for you.

Hit play to hear us revisit exploding neck collars, terrible future fashion, and why, for all its flaws, The Running Man is still an easy strong recommend.

You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out!

We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.

Until next time, we remain...

Bad Dads

The Running Man

Reegs: they had a video where they had pieces of paper attached to a band saw, and they were seeing how many they had to put together before they could drill apart an iPad.

Yeah, it was like on, a, not on a band saw on a, one of this is it a Circular Saw The spitty one. So it had like one piece of paper and obviously it just like loosely just flapped against an iPad and then they put two piece of paper, whatever, a bit of card. and eventually they could just cut through an

Sidey: Wow.

Are You still watching sandwiches?

Reegs: Yeah, I get a lot of sandwich content.

Cris: What like what do you mean watching sandwiches?

Sidey: People making sandwiches?

Reegs: Yeah. Algorithm serves me up. Sandwiches.

Dan: I, I watched somebody make rice in a frying pan today, and then they put egg on it. And

Sidey: egg fried rice,

Dan: no, no, because that would be the thing.

So first of all, you put vegetable oil in a pan and then you put. Uncooked rice in there. You put two cups, two

Reegs: Two cups

Cris: cooks.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: two cups in there, two cups of water. Yeah. And leave that 15 [00:01:00] minutes. You whisk four eggs, add salt, pepper tomato and spring onions or leeks or something. And then you tip that all over the

Fried rice or the rice in there that's cooking and you just, you cover it and it's like a rice egg pie

Reegs: right?

Sidey: You are like a rice

egg

Cris: like a Spanish omelet, but rice in

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: Do you know what I made for dinner The other night,

Reegs: what did you make?

Sidey: Brussels sprout Fried rice.

Reegs: Oh yeah. Nice.

Sidey: was very nice.

Reegs: Brussels sprouts in the air.

Fryer is the absolute dream.

at This time.

Sidey: Cold

day in hell before I, an air

Dan: We've got an

Cris: fryer I

think I've had sprouts maybe four times in

Sidey: They're amazing.

Reegs: When did they work out that air could fry things? what I wanna know.

Cris: make.

That's not an air fry, it's an oven.

Reegs: It's an

air

fryer.

Cris: exactly the same. If you look at how the, how it's made and how your oven at home is made, it's exactly the same. It's exactly the same principle [00:02:00] that is just a small chamber and that's why it cooks faster.

Reegs: fries with air though.

Cris: No,

it doesn't.

Sidey: This network. This network

is operating on wifi channels in use by several

other nearby networks. Restarting. Your wireless router

may allow it to automatically choose the best channel to use.

and may

resolve this problem.

Cris: I'm, I'm gone as well. My

Reegs: We've tried turning it off and turning it on again. There's literally nothing else. we

Dan: I'm out of ideas. And you are the IT

Reegs: That's

  1. That's all there is to it.

Cris: Pretty much. Unless you want to go to. I dunno.

Jersey Telecom HQ and restart. The whole sys the whole grid.

Reegs: Arnold Schwartzenegger is the running man, and it actually says that in the credits.

right at the beginning yeah.

Dan: Is it Ben Richards?

Richards.

Okay. cause I haven't seen this

for this

particular podcast

Sidey: but there was last week a newer, were a version of

it, more faithful to the source material.

The Richard Batman Turner Overdrive. Whoever

whoever that is

Dan: with a new actor in

Sidey: [00:03:00] Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. Glen

Dan: Glen Murray. No,

Sidey: it's been A bit floppy. A little bit maybe, but everything seems to be these days.

That's

an Edgar Wright movie. This

isn't, this is

a different guy.

Reegs: this is the 19

87 1. I've probably seen this a double digits amount

Dan: yeah.

I have,

Reegs: So

I would think

this was directed. that I didn't realize that this was directed by Paul Michael Glazer, who was starky from Starky and Hutch.

Sidey: it's got Mick

Reegs: Mick

Fleetwood is in it. Yeah. And one of the zappers as well. Yeah, Dweezil,

Sidey: yeah. It's the guy with the barrow. It's got other things in it as

well.

So I, I think I must tune in. Like I skip all the

Garth stuff at the start. It's not actually that Garth, but I'd just like to go straight into the

Dan: no, I, I quite like the, the backstory and they're watching him, they're sizing him. My Aren they,

Sidey: But they're set in the far, far distant future of 2017.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: A dystopian police state.

Reegs: We get a little bit of text,

don't, we

Cris: they did tell you that at the

Reegs: there's been a worldwide economic collapse and you know, yeah.

Sidey: Feels

Cris: And then it's Los Angeles

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: and, people are [00:04:00] kept imprisoned by like collars that explode if they go out of,

Sidey: Yeah.

If you speak out against the state, you get,

Reegs: you end up in prison with one of those collars on.

Yeah. But yeah, we're told about the state run broadcaster ICS that runs this.

Running Man program that everyone is addicted to, essentially. Like if I think Karl, was it Karl Marx said about religion being opiate, at the masses. Well, in this one it's television. So they calm their people down through this publication of this violent game show.

On tv. And then after that, we get one of three times that we're gonna see Arne in this helicopter sequence. The butcher of Bakersfield. We'll get the original story, which is that Arne was a police helicopter pilot.

Who was ordered to shoot on an unarmed crowd. 1500.

Sidey: He says they're unarmed there and

Reegs: Or they want his food for God's sakes, is what he says.

Sidey: And they just

rage over to his, like the guys next to him. So They take control. Yeah.

And Arnie just like judo chops him in

the face.

Reegs: Yeah. But he's

Cris: fight and a [00:05:00] helicopter.

I mean,

Sidey: know it doesn't crash. Yeah.

Reegs: he's eventually overpowered and you get the classic, I think gun, butt to the face to knock you out.

Sure Do. Cut scene thing and then 18 months later. He's in prison carrying a pylon on his shoulder like he was in commando. Commando.

Yeah. And

Sidey: just flexing.

Reegs: Yeah. They've got some ridiculous like setup there where the guards have got a sort of five digit key that they have to put into a computer program to stop the collar exploding that you were talking about Dan.

Yeah. That They don't bother to hide at all. So one guy's just like looking over his shoulder basically. Yeah.

Sidey: And one guy,

that when they, they.

There's an uprising, isn't There Where they saw Arne leads the charge of

them trying

to overpower the guards and the nerdy guy is trying to press the button on the computer.

Yeah.

And one guy just

gets super excited and makes a break for it, but they haven't got These Little radio

towers down yet. And his head goes,

Dan: popped. Yeah. Just to show us what's gonna happen.

Reegs: The two guys that he escapes with eventually they do escape. There's, [00:06:00] Yeah. Yaffe, Koto and the other guy, McIntyre was his name.

Weiss and Locklin, they're like part of a resistance movement and they ask Arnie to join. One thing I noticed is that his character is basically a complete dick from the beginning to the end of the movie.

like.

and He has the most one-liners in this. I think in this scene we've already had give you a lift as he

picks

the guy up and throws him over.

Sidey: It's just a sequence of events that allow him to spout these

one-liners.

Reegs: It's like totally like McBain this this

sequence.

Dan: Bain. Yeah.

Sidey: so. Well he gets

introduced to the resistance

'cause they do get through eventually. Yeah.

He guns down a load of guards, so he,

he didn't

kill anyone at the. food,

riot, but he's killed like at least a dozen ICS employees now.

Reegs: And he goes off,

he goes off to find his brother's apartment, doesn't he? To lay low. And that's when he meets up with,

Sidey: he, first of all go,

Cris: they go

to take the collar off?

No.

Reegs: No.

Sidey: the collar off to They meet Mick Fleetwood,

Reegs: make meat Fleetwood.

Sidey: And

he is able, he's got the tech to take [00:07:00] off the explosive

collar. And they don't

like him. They don't think he's a real true believer.

And maybe They

believe the propaganda. I dunno.

Cris: Well, you know, they know, he knows he's a cop. Like, he's like, he tells him like, you're a cop.

You're one of the

Sidey: Yeah.

They know he was working for the man. Yeah. And and like you say, so he kind of goes his own

off on his own to his brother's gaff, which is now being lived in by Conta Martinez.

the

Cris: Maria

Lonzo.

Reegs: Yeah. Amber Mendez. She makes little jingles for ICS. like Really terrible ones and dresses in a negligee to work out which is a cool look. Yeah. And Arne immediately becomes quite physical. He has to restrain her,

Sidey: Well, she see,

she's watching the news bulletin about him

escaping and then he just peers

over

looking at her and she obviously freaks out.

And he

Reegs: but he also is demanding to know what's going on because my brother lived here and she tells him he's been taken away to a reeducation camp. Yeah. Now I'm no expert, but that doesn't sound good.

Sidey: Yeah. I thought it just meant university. or something. Yeah.

Reegs: Good job, Arnie. will never mention him again.

in the movie.[00:08:00]

Forgotten he had a brother that died.

Sidey: They're getting excited. We're gonna meet Killian.

The He's in charge of the Running Man game

show. Yeah. So much so that, it's

funny the way

they, they explore the world that they live in and he's, he's, he

wants,

he sees Ben Richards and he is like, we need someone good on the running man, because People are just getting killed

Reegs: They're looking through the database. 'cause they've offered him some guy who's like killed. He's like, oh, he's killed his mother and his mother-in-law. Or something like that. Or is, And he's like, yeah, he's 120 pound weakling. He's gonna get crushed. And they're, they're looking through a database.

One of them is a actual baby. Did you see that? It's a named, ba baby Face March, but it's an actual

Sidey: baby.

that would've been good, But he'd see some footage of

riches and. Per the rules of the

show, they're not

allowed to have ex-military on there. But he's gonna, he says, get

me the president's agent.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And now you've got Trump and you're like, fuck. Oh Yeah. good.

Be

and so they pull some

strings [00:09:00] and they're gonna, they're gonna get him in.

Dan: Because

he loves the way he, he, he acts on this prison break, doesn't he? He

Reegs: the way he acts on the prison break, and then they immediately capture him at the airport.

when

Sidey: She gives him away. Yeah.

Reegs: She gives him away and he's taken down with that cool net shot.

Sidey: The man catcher.

Reegs: Yeah. And they take him down. So he's immediately put up onto the running man.

Sidey: He's given some jabs and some sort of tracking thing that they put into

them. Yeah. And gassed

Dan: and a onesie.

Sidey: Yeah. And.

He's gonna go, he's,

he's brought out onto the, the stage.

Reegs: He has a great bit where he, is, he's assigned a court appointed agent, It's not even a lawyer.

It's an agent He's reading him his lack of rights, and he sort of signs it off and stabs him in the back. as

Sidey: No,

Dan: is, it is that classic, isn't it? Yeah. He goes, use my back to, and he just like, keep the change or whatever it is.

Sidey: Yeah. Then he gets, he gets

put on

stage with Killian.

Reegs: This is where he tells him I'll be back.

Sidey: Well, he says, he says, we

don't wanna disappoint you, and

we've got a little surprise for you and his two mates. [00:10:00] Yeah. Are, are sort of already in their little,

Reegs: they're at least like rocket sled things and that

Sidey: that's great fun that bit.

Reegs: Well, but they're sort of vertical, aren't they? They look so uncomfortable. Those actors. 'cause They're like hanging vertically in these and Yeah, they're sent down in these rocket sls sled Sleds even

Yeah.

Dan: Well, as he says, I'll be back. Killian says rerun only in a rerun. That's it.

Sidey: And then it go, they, so they get the opportunity then in, in this

set up of the game show to go to the crowd

and the crowd

get to pick who the stalker is gonna be.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: So he gets the lady down and put someone on the spot.

was like, who do you want, you know, as the first stalker. And

she's got a thing for

chub chubby guys. What didn't she say? Yeah, she's got got a thing

for a big a cuddly men or something. She says, I wanna pick. So she's just fat. shame subzero. Yeah. And we're gonna get to, is it this

one? So

if he is gonna fight

him, and then it is, this one I think is the worst

pun he's ever, ever delivered.

No,

that's, oh, sorry. This

Reegs: pain in the neck. The, [00:11:00] This buzz saw is

Sidey: Have he

Reegs: he

had to split?

Sidey: No, he says,

He was Sub-Zero. Now he's just plain zero. Like that's not even, that's not even a joke.

it's terrible. Yeah. So it's essentially then a sequence of set pieces where Arne gets to fight one-on-one With these

Reegs: Yeah. And they're sort of like, if You imagine the shows like Yeah. Wrestling or

Dan: they're making a video game at this stage. Because you are just going through the levels and Arne has to beat each.

Kind of, and it is a game,

Reegs: he takes down

Dan: show. It's a game.

Reegs: It is. yeah. And they're giving away

Dan: but it's a

game of death.

Reegs: The subzero gets taken down

pretty swiftly, It's

Sidey: He rots in with some razor wire.

Dan: Well,

Reegs: first time that, he a runner's ever killed a stalker.

Dan: Well, every now and again, they show that the two guys that finished yeah.

And they enjoying life on a Caribbean beach

Sidey: Last season's winners. Yeah. Her

they're.

Their Debt to

society paid

in full. You see them on a Caribbean island

Dan: just, just enjoying it. And we've already [00:12:00] seen through the butcher of Bakersfield how they can manipulate

Reegs: oh yeah, we forgot to say that.

He didn't, yeah. They, they show like edited footage of Arnie.

Like they just take out the bit of, Arnie

Dan: again, quite ahead of its time. Because at in those days, you, you would say, oh,

Sidey: well, we've got the

BBC thing.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Oh man.

Fucking,

Sidey: is obviously not as bad as this,

but you know, it's just, it's just bad

editing. Yeah,

Dan: it's, it's, it's really sloppily done that,

Reegs: do You imagine, right?

Imagine having to lie about something stupid Trump said, as opposed to just fucking reporting what he actually says Yeah.

Dan: it is. It is nuts. And they both quit, haven't they? Like they're BB, C

Sidey: they had to anyway.

Dan: We digress, but.

Sidey: sub's gone. The crowd had Crest fallen about this. Yeah. 'Cause they're really super into their stalkers,

but they're gonna get

someone else out.

I think the next one is Buzzell.

Reegs: Yeah. Buzz Saw and Dynamo go at the same

Sidey: Yeah, that's true actually.

They get too.

Dan: I love the

way that,

Reegs: and also she, Amber goes on a very quick plot because she's at the she works at ICS and she hears the story being [00:13:00] reported and it's reported that Ben killed a load of people at the airport.

and She knows for a fact that didn't happen. So she starts snooping, finds the unedited Raw footage, Of DEI and ends up getting herself in hot water and thrown in the game, which Killian loves. He can play it up as a romantic. As they put her in, they're like reading a list of crimes, which includes she had sex with two or three different men In one year.

Dan: Yeah. They, they have Killian again, sort of when Subzero dies, he, he's really like. Milk in the crowd, isn't he? And it, it is like a really hard moment for him. And

Sidey: think. They say we need to do,

a, we need to do some fundraising for

his family or

Dan: something.

Reegs: showing all these like mournful things of

Sidey: things. He just murders

Reegs: psychotic murderer. Yeah.

Sidey: So it's buzz saw

so

They

don't kill

Dynamo

Reegs: No. Buzz saw gets chainsawed in half via the groin. Yeah. He had to

split.

Cris: yeah, I've seen that.

Sidey: That was painful.

Yeah. He does

it like his screams get more high pitched as that.

Reegs: Oh, this Is so

[00:14:00] stupid?

So stupid.

Sidey: And then he lures dynamo.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, actually Dynamo just does in a really badly edited scene, drives really badly and his car falls over and then Richards won't kill him and sends out a message to the,

Sidey: I'm not a coldblooded

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Even scum like you, as he says.

Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

So

Yeah. So they head off. So at the moment now we've got like the

Sidey: well, it's during this, it is during this thing. 'cause he

kills him here. Dynamo kills the nerd. The nerd sees the,

Reegs: There's these

Sidey: link up tower and he's,

he's already cracked the code.

He has just hasn't been able to input it into the computer. But he sees where the uplink is

and he,

this is where he hacks it,

And he's getting Amber to memorize the

sequence. but Dynamo kills him.

Before he's able to do it. Yeah, So she

Cris: electric shocks.

Sidey: Yeah. He is a cool weapon.

Reegs: Yeah.

yeah.

He's got this like Mohawk,

isn't he?

Cris: quite fat though.

Reegs: Yeah. He's big

fat Russian

guy. He's Singing like goes into battle in that crazy car. [00:15:00] Singing like ride of the Valkyries or

Sidey: whatever. He died immediately after this

Reegs: mate. Yeah.

Cris: Oh, in reality as well.

Sidey: Yeah.

in real life. Yeah.

This last movie,

and he was like a trained opera singer and stuff, so

the hymn singing was all legit.

Cris: Oh, right. Nice. Okay.

Sidey: was a

dude.

So Buzz has gone and dynamo's been sort of taken down, but

not killed. Yeah. And at this point, Killian tries to recruit Ben. He gives

him an off air call, say,

listen, you know,

what about you can't work for

us? Yeah. You gonna make it work and blah, blah, blah. And he tells him, no, fuck off.

Reegs: I, think he tells him he's going to rip out his goddamn spine, I think is what he says. So,

Sidey: They have to get,

what's the fire guy?

Fireball. Is

the next one. It gets like a call to, like immediately come

to

wardrobe.

'Cause they desperately need him and his he's got like a big flame thrower thing.

Reegs: And he chases them around until they find the bodies of last year's winners still there with their dog tags.

Sidey: it's great the way they do it with

the, the same voiceover, but now it's just

three

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: rotten away. into nothing.

Reegs: Yeah. But that was good of them to leave those corpses there [00:16:00] for us to find.

in the plot

Dan: Well, that's it. But they also start to feed that through to the masses who are always crowded on the streets, watching this on shared televisions and things and cheering and whooping at each deaf. And and now they see, wait a minute, you know, there's those guys didn't make it. And

Sidey: Well, they, it is weird because they have to kill fireball.

Which

they do through fire. Yeah. As I think

he's got Amber pinned

down

with the these dead guys.

That's And Arnie whips his sort of fuel line out and Chucks a flare at him. And then it's also

somehow

Dan: a pun there? is it

Sidey: He does, He does,

He he definitely does. I can't remember it was but he

cause when they do get

the resistance to upload the, to do the upload thingy, They show on the broadcast the same

thing that we've

Reegs: Yeah.

Even though there was no one. Yeah, exactly. I know, I know. Also there's a bit where, 'cause she's gonna have hidden the unedited footage. Somewhere about a person strongly implying [00:17:00] that's her cooch. So I was sort of wondering like. In her, it's like in this scene, like talking to the director.

So have I got the file in my pussy now or all

anyway. Yeah. 'cause they're gonna meet up with the resistance now. Right? There's a few things gonna happen. Jesse Ventura, the who's this sort of like he looks captain freedom. Captain Freedom, yeah. He looks like a golf commentator or something, but mixed with a wrestler.

And he's gonna come out of retirement and they're going to talk about deep fakes AI before it was even a thing 'cause they're gonna fake. Captain Freedom, fighting and killing.

Sidey: So, but they do

Reegs: because it's starting to get too much, the audience

Sidey: it's outta control.

Reegs: him like the old woman picks. She's like, they, say, oh, who's gonna be the next killer?

And she's like, Ben Richards, that boy's a mean motherfucker.

Sidey: But they actually do kill someone. Mm. And it is not, it's not.

Completely. But as they kill a guy

Reegs: Yeah. And then they composite his face on

Sidey: Yeah.

So someone had

to go for that to happen. They did. It's ruthless, isn't it?

Reegs: Yeah. So with that happening.

Then they know that the race is on basically to kill everybody.

[00:18:00] So Arne, they meet up with the resistance, don't they? Yeah. Which is when she says, I've been hiding this thing in my pussy for the whole time. And they're gonna then storm.

the,

really quickly, they're gonna storm the headquarters of ICS

Sidey: Well, they do the broadcast while Killian's trying to do

a speech to the crowd.

Yeah. It, just goes haywire and then it just comes up with the footage of him and it just says Killian is

lying to you and everyone's confused and then they start broadcasting all the shit that they found out. Yeah. And, overthrow the, establishment And via

the medium of television.

Reegs: They do.

Yeah. Not before Dynamo's gonna reappear and try and rape Amber. Yeah. And then get electrocuted. With

his pants down fucking

Sidey: There's nothing

funny about what'd she say?

Impotent fucking moron with a battery off his ass or

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: She says to him and then he dies. Yeah. What a way to go. Yeah.

Reegs: And then.

Killian, he's got this monstrous security guard that he's already made puns about him taking steroids or something, and his security guard is gonna abandon him at the last minute.

Sidey: Well, Arnie says,

I, I told

[00:19:00] Killian that I'd be back and I I don't wanna be a liar. So he

confronts him and that's, yeah. when he, he turns up and because killing's been mean to him, he just says, nah, you're fucked.

And on he

puts him in that,

Dan: he straps him in the rocket ship, doesn't he?

Sidey: thing and Fucks him off through the

sign, the coder sign that we've seen a Million times. through the film.

To his death.

Dan: yeah. Well, it it fireballs up, doesn't it? It just sort of blows up that. And he's obviously deeded

Reegs: and then despite him not this being any, a romantic story at all, they decide to kiss at the end.

And then the broadcast go, it goes like, please stand by or something. that, 'cause it's been broadcast to the population.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: The end.

Cris: Mm-hmm.

Dan: And she probably sleeps with Foreman that year. Yeah, yeah. Pretty right. It's still a classic though. I'm just listening to you guys talking about it and I may watch it again.

I'll be intrigued to see the new one. Just because

Cris: I, I did try to to not just watch it, but see it on [00:20:00] Amazon, the new one, and it said coming soon.

It didn't, it's

Sidey: not, it's only

The

multiplex last week, I think.

Cris: Ah, right. So it's only, yeah.

Sidey: very, very new. Yeah. But

that

one is, is very, very, I, I think

the ending, they might tweet the ending, but I think the rest of it is very much,

More faithful to the source.

Reegs: I think with this one, you can't, it feels almost like a low rent ver Hoven movie and you can't help but wish Paul Verhoeven had made it as well. Yeah. It's really good. But there is some stuff, like I was talking about that's badly edited that comes from the fact that. there Was two and a half directors who worked on this movie.

Andrew Davis went first and they gave it to Mark Glazer who was, did the prison scene and then the other guy, Starski and Harpo, Michael Glazer was the one who finished it off. So, you can sort of feel that a little bit sometimes through it.

Sidey: I mean, if you look at it and

try and critique it like we have today,

it's so flawed.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: As a technical exercise.

and the plot. is just obviously silly and

but why do they

Dan: many directors? Do you know?

Reegs: I think producers and executives fucked [00:21:00] around with it. Yeah.

Sidey: it was quite high budget, but I think a lot of that

went to ar.

Reegs: Yeah. But it's still really good. And you know, the satire is broad, but there's a load of stuff that great, you know, good stuff like the, the state owned media creating conflict and all that sort of stuff.

And you know.

Misleading

stories

being told to make the government look good. That's also something I think we can resonate with these

Sidey: Does that mean we're gonna get a real Running man show?

Because that'd be awesome.

Reegs: And that, some of that stuff as well, because when, when he wrote the thing Stephen King in 1982, cops, the show wasn't a thing.

Gladiators wasn't a thing. American Idol wasn't a thing. So he, to have conceived of this idea,

Sidey: he did it within 10 days. The book,

Reegs: Yeah. He was doing a lot of Coke as well. wasn't

Sidey: He obviously this one came out as, as

a Richard Backman Yeah. Book.

And the guy who bought

the rights

didn't know that that

was Stephen King. Oh, right.

So when they brought the, and the,

i, i dunno who

you've done through agents or whatever, he's like, why is it so fucking expensive? No one's ever heard of this

guy like Stephen King idiot.

Dan: Yeah. He did some brilliant [00:22:00] books

Sidey: actually Yeah, yeah.

Dan: Backman. Yeah. But this one obviously made into a, a film now been rereleased, remade

Sidey: same. Yeah.

Predator.

What, what a double bill. Yeah.

At Arne and

Jesse Venter double bill, Same year.

Amazing. 87. Wow.

Dan: Fine. A Fine. year.

The,

Cris: predator is five times better

Reegs: I do probably

agree with that.

Cris: This was, this is the first time I've ever seen it and I fell asleep for most of it. But from the parts I've seen, it's, it didn't live up to the expectation. I, I knew what it was gonna be and I kind of, obviously I know it's an 87 film, but it's just is, I

Sidey: Arnie's yellow jumpsuit. not do it for you.

Cris: I wish he would've taken it off.

Sidey: Yeah,

same.

Cris: you know.

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: That would've been my only wish in this film, but all in all,

Sidey: strong

Reegs: recommend. strong. strong recommend.

Dan: Yeah.