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The first reviews are in for the Gal Gadot-led action thriller “The Runner” and the results are disastrous – they make her last action vehicle “Heart of Stone” look good.
Despite being helmed by acclaimed “The Last King of Scotland,” “Black Sea” and “The Mauritanian” director Kevin Macdonald, the film has scored utterly scathing reviews with just 9% (3.9/10) on Rotten Tomatoes and 31/100 on Metacritic.
In the film, Maia Marten (Gadot) has built her life on being one step ahead — a sharp, resourceful, high-powered lawyer at the top of London’s legal world. During her routine morning run, a single phone call shatters her world: her son has been taken.
The instructions to get him back are simple and merciless – keep moving, follow every command, and tell no one. Stop, and he dies. Forced to sprint through the city and obey a series of sinister commands, Maia must confront an impossible question: how far will she go to bring her son home?
Here’s a sampling of reviews:
“Movies such as these are all about suspension of disbelief, and The Runner keeps a fast enough pace that we don’t wind up asking too many questions.” – Jordan Mintzer, THR
“Gal Gadot goes all in, and her physical effort shows, but The Runner is just not as strong as it could be, especially when it falls into the familiar elements we have seen so many times before.” – Alex Maidy, JoBlo
“The Runner’s slick design and technical contributions do not transcend the outward packaging for a potboiler with scant substance beneath. Not much helping is Tom Hodge’s score, the percussive thrust of which sounds mostly driven by bongoes.” – Dennis Harvey, Variety
“Intelligence might not be what one would expect here, which is somewhat acceptable in B-movie territory such as this, but the lack of excitement is hard to forgive.” – Benjamin Lee, The Guardian
“Gal Gadot does everything she can to keep The Runner, well, running, but despite some decent set pieces, the film is ultimately unsatisfying.” – Scott Collura, IGN
“The long bout of cardio is a delightfully idiotic riff on Phone Booth and its ilk, perfectly obnoxious and exquisitely silly for the right kind of hate-watcher.” – Jacob Oller, AV Club
“‘The Runner’ isn’t much of a thriller. It isn’t much of a movie. It would, however, be a hilarious episode of ‘Taskmaster.’” – William Bibbiani, The Wrap
“Ridiculous, skipping on lean and mean to welcome absurdity as plot turns increase, putting Gibson and Macdonald on the hunt to surprise viewers instead of trying to dazzle them with sustained intensity.” – Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com
Amazon MGM Studios releases the 84-minute film which is opens Friday.
The post “The Runner” Reviews Are In appeared first on Dark Horizons.
