The Running Man 2025 is Edgar Wright being better than Eli Roth

December 24, 2025

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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

I have not seen the original 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film yet. But I did appreciate the small cameo of Schwarzenegger on the new dollars used for money in the world of the 2025 Edgar Wright's political action-horror-comedy The Running Man.

Weird that in this world there is still cash.

Edgar Wright is one of the best film-directors living today. After watching The Running Man my immediate thought was to re-watch it again. I didn't. I needed to go to bed. But the movie was made with so much cinematic detail, that I knew I missed maybe 99% of the film. Me re-watching Wright's other films like Hot Fuzz ( where he understands Michael Bay ), or Baby Driver ( where he perfects Mickey-Mousing action cinema ) for bazillionth time, still reveals little things that I had not seen previously.

The film feels like a sick kind of Eli Roth film at times. Wright collaborated with Roth on the Grindhouse for Tarantino and Rodriguez. They both made fake trailers for the show. And based on some rather Sherlock Holmsy observations I made while watching Hot Fuzz last time ( I've seen it at least once since I wrote the review ), I can tell Wright is using Eli Roth related references in that film. For example, the deaths in Hot Fuzz are bloody brutal. And the gang of kids is reminiscent to the gang of kids in the Hostel movies.

The Running Man as far as I can tell, has at least one reference to the first Hostel movie. And the deaths in the film are fucking brutal too. The whole movie is premised on the idea that TV entertainment in future will be more important for the United States of America than human life. Basically they would have game shows where contestants are getting killed. And it is shown in all the glorious detail.

Now there is a funny little moment that I love Wright actually did. A lot of people might misunderstand it as mindless censorship. But I don't think that specific type of censorship was mindless. So the movie is R-rated and the world the movie is set in has real snuff TV, real murder on TV. Strong stuff. Yet they still blur the tities. LOL. This is fucking hilarious.

Glen Powell is actually starting to become one of the coolest actors lately. He is very good and most importantly he is very fucking charismatic. He is like the next Tom Cruise. And now I think that Joseph Kosinski is more of a genius for casting Powell in Top Gun Maverick in the role that he is in, which sort of mirrors Tom Cruise from the original Top Gun by Tony Scott.

The most beautiful man in the whole universe Michael Cera is here, reuniting with Edgar Wright after they worked together on Scott Pilgrim. And Wright + Cera combination is a really good mix if you want something kick ass and comedic. Now all I want is a Wright movie with Michael Cera, but also with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. That would be like the perfect Edgar Wright experience. And I will buy an over-priced Cornetto for that in the cinema.

Angelo Gray plays a very interesting character. It kind of seems like Wright is toying with the kids from Hostel once again in this film, but just with this one kid. The joke of this character is that it seems like you have this 11 year old, or so kid, but he is so vulgar in his speech and so cool in his actions that, in theory, this should completely blow everyone's mind. And it kind of does. Like, I fucking love this character. And I want more of him. But there is something very interesting about his inclusion.

As I said, something similar was done by Roth in Hostel and Wright himself did something similar in Hot Fuzz. You can even count Knives Chau ( Ellen Wong ) from Scott Pilgrim as another example of it. But if you think about Scott and therefor think about the most beautiful man alive Michael Cera a little bit more, you will arrive at another interesting film with Cera that came out also this year, in 2025. And that one is Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme. Wes Anderson does something similar with his kids characters almost all the time. And Wes Anderson with Edgar Wright are considered to be last few remaining directors that can do visual comedy wright. Interesting...

Speaking about the political messages in the film. The film is undeniably, heavily, stupidly political. Wight was toying with politics before. But I think he is allowing himself to show more and more of it with each next film. On Hot Fuzz there was a political intrigue on the background. There was satire about police practices. But mostly, it was a lot of fun. In his 2021 film Last Night in Soho ( which I should re-watch ASAP, it was an amazing piece of cinema ) he goes way harder on politics. And in The Running Man it seems he went all in.

While the central plot of the film is about winning a deadly TV contest, the story of the film tells about a potential future we are all headed towards. You can think of this movie as Wright's adaptation of 1984, almost. Just with a lot more fun, because it is Edgar fucking Wright. Now here is something interesting. It seems, based on what I could analyse from this one viewing of the film, that the film is leaning heavily left. While Wright's fella ( which I'm trying to suggest was at least a partial inspiration ) Eli Roth's films lean right. Just look at his 2018 remake of Death Wish. How am I supposed to believe that those directors are buddies, when their messaging is opposite?

The film actually gives us a clue. Not an answer. I still don't know how to neatly connect all of it together. But a clue that seems like it could be something we need, to solve it. And the clue is in a form of Emilia Jones's character Amelia. We meet her towards the second half of the movie, and almost immediately she is going through an identity crisis of sorts. Through a realization of shame. A sudden need to prove herself as being a good person. For the context, the main hero of the film, signed up for The Running Man to get some money for his sick little girl back home. While Amelia is a member of the rich. Or maybe a sort of version of the middle class. But she is leaning rich.

As far as I can tell, the main divide in this film seems to be between rich people ( who are fine with work abuse, as long as they get paid good ) and poor people ( who want to fight the system to improve conditions everywhere, which leads them usually to having no job ). This is interesting. This reminds me of this strange feeling I have when people tell me that I can go work for some big boss somewhere and do projects for them. My values seem to be incompatible with that.

Think of somebody like Richard Stallman who famously stated that being a waiter is a perfectly respectable job, while being a kick-ass programmer. He understood that unless there are ways to do the job ethically, you may as well settle for something less, that is ethical.

And then there is another thing that made me relate to Amelia. I live in Israel. And it feels like I need to constantly prove others that I'm not a bad person, now a days. I can relate to both Amelia and the main character in the same time. Which makes the whole thing uniquely deep. And makes me appreciate the nuanced understanding of all this stuff from Edgar Wright. Spoiler Alert: Amelia is not a bad person.

Now for the interesting thing that I felt very strongly about. Karl Glusman is in here. You know, the same Karl Glusman that was in Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon...

Happy Hacking!!!