Today I was diligent and did my sequel work from 8:30am to 11am so life is good and I have an easy assignment for a post today. Camera Girl and I went out to the movies yesterday. Of course, because we’re ancient we went to the 10:45 am showing and the theater on a Tuesday morning was virtually empty. We went to see “Runner” with Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson. Ritchson is the actor who plays Reacher in the Amazon series. The plot has Ritchson as a courier who handles “special” deliveries. He is supposed to deliver Owen Wilson and a transplant liver to a hospital where a little girl is on death’s door. But there is also a drug cartel boss who wants the liver for his mother. So, we get two hours of chase scenes, shootouts and fights culminating at the hospital where the little girl is waiting. And it wouldn’t qualify as a spoiler if I tell you how it all ends. But I won’t.
It was made by Angel Studios and I won’t say that it is a much lower quality than a big studio production but there’s a kind of “over the top” aspect to some of the scenes. I would say generically, it’s an action/chase movie where the action is dialed up to eleven and stays there. The fight scenes and the chase scenes go on and on seemingly for the whole movie. So, if you have a limited tolerance for these scenes this will strain your patience. As far as the acting, Ritchson does a workmanlike job of his part which is quite similar to the Reacher character. Owen Wilson plays his usual Owen Wilson persona. Meaning he’s a quirky affable, loquacious man who drives Ritchson’s strong, silent character insane with his endless banter. The bad guys are everything you would want for the cartoon villains and cars, trucks and anything available is crashed, burned or blown up as needed.
Alright, I’ve said enough. This movie is a silly action/adventure/comedy/buddy movie. Does it work? Mostly. Would I recommend it? Well, I’d have to qualify if by saying if you like Owen Wilson and you like watching Alan Ritchson doing his incredible hulk imitation then yes, you’ll enjoy this. If you’re a big fan of action movies you also might like it. Otherwise maybe it might be too over the top for you.