What’s this all about?
Written and directed by freshman director Austin Stark, 2014’s The Runner is a political drama about a Democratic Louisiana congressman who is worried about the Deep Water Horizon oil spill, and has aspirations for higher office.
Unfortunately, he also likes to sleep with women who aren’t his wife, and his Dad, who is also a politician, sucks.
If you ever misbehaved as a kid, and your mother made you go sit in your room and quietly think about what you’d done, then you’ve already pretty much seen this movie.
It’s a couple of hours of Nick, thinking about his situation, punctuated by scenes of him making further bad decisions, all of which has basically no impact on anything.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Colin Pryce,” a second generation Louisiana politician. He’s married, although he doesn’t really seem to care about his wife, at all. He really, really wants to be a US Senator. He also really, really wants to bang a bunch of ladies.
Who else is in this one?
Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) plays “Kate Haber,” a campaign advisor who Nick also sleeps with. Sarah Paulson feels weird and wrong for this role. Honestly, she seems weird and wrong for every role that I’ve ever seen her in.
Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) plays Rayne Pryce, Nick’s washed-up, alcoholic, asshole father. It didn’t seem like much of a stretch. I hated him, but I was supposed to.
Wendell Pierce (“Bunk” from The Wire) plays “Frank Legrand,” a political operative. He’s fine.
Did you see that?
There are a couple of scenes in which Nick argues with his Dad about how much of an asshole his Dad is. “Kempo” brand cigarettes are featured in several of these scenes. “Kempo” is one of those fake brands that are used in multiple movies/TV Shows. RIta in Dexter smokes Kempos, for example.
I just find the existence of these fictional brands to be fascinating. -Michael
A democratic senator from Louisiana? That’s not realistic. Hell, that hasn’t happened since 2014. Wait – this film was made in 2015. Okay, maybe at the time it felt possible. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
The movie ends as Nick jogs down a street. He stops for a moment, and looks confused. Then the credits roll. This was the only scene in this movie that I could relate to. This movie failed to tell a story, or to show any character growth, or to make any sort of point, so the ending was, to me, confusing.
I felt like Nick looked. -Michael
I feel like Nick did a consistently good job throughout this film. The scene where he sat by his father’s side in the hospital was particularly well done. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
There’s a scene in which Nick is intimate with one of his lovers in a hotel room. This was one of the most awkward intimate scenes that I’ve ever seen. There was zero chemistry between the actors, and it honestly looked like the director just yelled, “Hey, start making out. Go!” and nobody was expecting it. -Michael
The rooftop scene where he heard out the offer from a BP executive was his worst. He just wasn’t believable. It was like he was delivering his lines while thinking of something else. -Sarah
How was the movie?
This movie is bad. The script is bad. The direction is bad. Austin Stark (the film’s writer and director) should feel bad. I’m sure he does, because this move made $20,000 at the box office against a $4 million dollar budget.
Let that sink in.
If you had every penny that this film made in your hand, you could not afford to drive a base model Nissan Sentra off the lot.
The quality of the acting in this film is immaterial. There is nothing that Nicolas Cage, or anyone else on screen, could have done to fix this. The story doesn’t exist.
I’m going to try to sum up the entire arc, here.
- The Deep Water Horizon oil spill happens. This upsets Nick, a Louisiana congressman.
- He tries to get BP to pay to clean up their mess, but they don’t want to. He gives an impassioned plea on TV that gets him sudden attention, which he uses to launch a bid for the senate.
- It turns out, he’s been banging the wife of one of the fishermen who got screwed by BP. This comes out, and everyone withdraws their backing of his campaign, and he loses.
- He starts a charity doing pro bono legal work for people impacted by the oil spill, but nobody wants to give him any money.
- His Dad, who sucks, dies.
- Nick has another affair, which almost immediately falls apart.
- BP sort of secretly gives his charity a bunch of money.
- A political operative convinces Nick that if he would abandon his position that off-shore drilling should be banned, that he could get more money from companies like BP to run for office again.
- He does, starting a new political campaign.
- The movie ends.
I honestly don’t know what I was supposed to take from that. It feels like there was a point somewhere in there about the inherent corruption of money in politics, but Nick was a shitty guy throughout. Him becoming marginally more shitty isn’t really “development.” Nothing is resolved. It’s just stuff that happened. -Michael
It was okay. I didn’t sleep through it. I felt like it was well acted. The story and plot were a little dull. But overall it was okay. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
I hated it. -Michael
I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think I’ll watch it again either. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s free on PlutoTV, Amazon Prime, Plex, and some other platforms.
Leave a Reply