Runner (15)

Ex-military man Hank Malone has turned his back on violence. Now celebrating one year of sobriety, he is carving out a new life as a delivery driver. For his latest job, Hank must escort Ben Bishop and his precious medical cargo, a healthy liver, from a private jet to a hospital on the Gold Coast. Unfortunately, a Colombian cartel led by Damian Zaldivar intends to hijack the delivery and steal the organ.

LondonNet Film Review

Runner (15) Film Review from LondonNet

When we think of action thrillers, we tend to picture kidnappings, high-stakes heists or terrorist attacks driving the plot. The practice of organ transportation, by contrast, feels like an unlikely hook for the genre. Yet this is precisely the premise of Scott Waugh’s Runner, not to be confused with Gal Gadot’s action thriller The Runner, which recently arrived on Prime Video…

Set in Brisbane, Australia, the film stars Alan Ritchson as Hank Malone, a very muscular ex-military man who has turned his back on a life of violence. Now celebrating one year of sobriety, he is carving out a new life as a delivery driver. For his latest job, Hank must escort Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson) and his precious medical cargo, a healthy liver, from a private jet to a hospital on the Gold Coast.

Unfortunately, a Colombian cartel led by Damian Zaldivar (Rodrigo Santoro) intends to hijack the delivery and steal the organ. With time running out for a young patient and her desperate mother (Leila George), Hank and Ben must dodge bullets as they race against the clock to deliver the transplant to the surgical team.

The film makes no attempt to ground its premise in reality, but there’s suspension of disbelief and then there’s Runner. How has a cartel ended up in Brisbane? How is Hank able to fight off seemingly endless waves of gang members single-handedly? We do find out the answer to the first question, and are treated to a number of telenovela-style plot twists along the way, only adding to the film’s far-fetched nature.

If you’re looking for action, Runner certainly delivers. There’s a never-ending Range Rover chase, several gunfights and a race against the clock as Hank and Ben desperately try to get the organ to its destination while it is still viable. Wilson provides plenty of comic relief, but Runner is far more heavily weighted towards action than comedy. He and Ritchson make for an unlikely double act, but their chemistry helps carry the film through its clunky plot. The action sequences towards the end start to feel relentless, but if you’re looking for brawn over plot, Runner is mildly entertaining.

– Lynn Rusk