"The Runner" Review

The latest loaf of movie content from Amazon Prime Video is The Runner, not to be confused with at least five prior movies with the same title. Starring Gal Gadot (Date Night) stars as Maia Marten, a London prosecutor with a diabetic son. After dropping him off at school, she sets off for a jog before meeting heading to court where a star witness is going to testify against a previously untouchable crime boss.

However, she receives a phone call from a voice that sounds like Jason Statham (Damian Lewis, Homeland) telling and showing her that he has her son, Noah (Rory Wilmot), has given him an extra dose of insulin to put him in a coma and if she doesn't murder the witness within one hour he will die unless glucagon is administered. He orders her to run to the hotel the witness is sequestered and shoot him with the gun he has placed in Noah's backpack and left in a dumpster as proof he has him as if the video call doesn't do as much.

So, off she goes encountering obstacles like being hit by a car and waking up in an ambulance still wearing her phone headset so she can hear the Caller. When she rides the subway (yeah, Underground, I'm American and we fought a war against England to have our own words) to make up lost time, her phone is pickpocketed and she somehow is able to run ahead to get back on the train. Whut? That's the kind of movie this is.

Also to fill time is the Caller taunting her about her life, how she used a sperm donor to have Noah (why is never explained), how her mother murdered her abusive father - or did she? - while goading her to the destination. They even work in that she was a champion pentathlon runner which includes shooting, but there wasn't a single twist that was unexpected and when they flashback at the end to show what really happened, it seems to be for those who were too busy on their phones to pay attention to the hyperkinetic camera and editing work.

There's been a recent uptick of bashing Gal Gadot for her limited thespian skills. (That means acting, not making out with chicks, weirdos.) In a world where Dakota Johnson exists, that's somewhat unfair. Critical Drinker's review really slammed her performance, but I found it wholly adequate. As a real-life mother of four (while fit enough to justify some gratuitous butt shots), she shows affection for her spawnling and seems appropriately sad and stressed. This role requires physical fitness more than anything and as I said, Dakota Johnson.

 Director Kevin Macdonald has a varied filmography including Touching the Void and The Last King of Scotland which won Forest Whitaker an Oscar, so this seems a little out of place but he keeps the action frenetic without devolving into Paul Greengrass shaky-cam and nausea-inducing edit fu.

 While The Runner is just another piece of content that will sink into the endless shelves of Prime Video's lousy UX and never be thought of again in a couple of weeks, if there's "nothing else to watch" then a brisk 80-minute (sans credits) jaunt of sweaty Gal Gadot is better than nothing, if barely. 

Score: 5/10. Catch it on Prime Video.