The Runner (2026)
Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
Premise: A prosecutor (Gal Gadot) is phoned by a mysterious caller (Damian Lewis) who threatens to murder her son (Rory Wilmot) unless she kills her star witness. She must jog across London to make the deadline.
What Works: The Runner is an action thriller that unfolds almost in real time. The protagonist is literally running against a clock; she must travel on foot across London while trying to foil the villain’s demands. Nothing about the concept is credible or novel so filmmaker Kevin Macdonald tries to outrun the film’s story problems. To a limited extent, the filmmakers succeed. The Runner is extremely kinetic. Gal Gadot’s character is constantly on the move but so is the camera. The surging momentum and the slim run time pushes The Runner through some of its unlikely storytelling developments. There are a few impressive stunts especially when Gadot’s character pushes her way out of a moving vehicle. The filmmakers are also willing to beat up Gadot’s character. She gets injured and we can feel her exhaustion by the end of the film.
What Doesn’t: The storytelling of The Runner is fraught from the start. It’s the kind of criminal plot that only exists in the movies; it’s unnecessarily complex and relies on coincidences. Gal Gadot’s character has immediate stakes; her son’s life is in danger. What’s never clear is the broader stakes of the criminal case and the importance of the witnesses’ testimony. That leaves a glaring hole in the everyone’s motivations. The kidnapper talks entirely too much. He’s supposed to be a professional but he behaves as though this is a personal vendetta. The storytelling becomes increasingly strained. The big reveal about the lawyer’s backstory is supposed to be a shocker but it’s obvious from the start. Gadot’s character communicates with the kidnapper by cell phone and at one point her phone is stolen by pickpockets on a train. She outruns the train to the next train station. Gadot’s character steals other people’s cell phones multiple times throughout the movie, each with the same result. By the time she arrives at her destination, Gadot’s character is wanted by the police and looks injured and disheveled, yet she’s waved through a security checkpoint. The movie’s tenuous logic collapses in the ending. Instead of forcing Gadot’s character to make a meaningful choice, the filmmakers opt for a reveal that upends everything we’ve seen to this point. It’s dumb and a cheat that insults the audience’s intelligence.
Disc extras: Available on Prime Video.
Bottom Line: The Runner is the kind of action film that would have gone direct to DVD twenty years ago. The filmmakers do what they can to cover for the story’s flaws but the pileup of implausibilities becomes insurmountable.
Episode: #1116 (September 13, 2026)