The Runner

Maia Marten (Gal Gadot) is a successful London lawyer whose morning run takes a horrifying turn when she receives a phone call informing her that her son has been kidnapped. The mysterious caller gives her a simple set of instructions: keep moving, do exactly what he says and tell no one. If she fails, her son dies. What follows is essentially an 84-minute race through London as Maia attempts to understand who is controlling her, why she has been targeted and what she will have to do to get her son back.

Director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, State of Play) has assembled a surprisingly good cast for what is essentially a high-concept streaming thriller. Gadot certainly commits physically to the role, while Damian Lewis proves that sometimes all a good actor needs is his voice to generate menace. Yet neither can overcome the fundamental problem: The Runner simply isn’t as engaging as its premise suggests it should be.

Films built around this kind of restriction require increasingly inventive obstacles. The audience needs to feel trapped alongside the protagonist. Instead, Maia’s journey begins to feel repetitive. She runs. The phone rings. Another instruction arrives. Something goes wrong. She keeps running. And running. And running.

Eventually, the questions occupying your mind aren’t necessarily the ones the filmmakers intended. When does Gal Gadot get hydrated? Are London’s police that incompetant? More importantly, what kind of phone does Maia own that apparently possesses an everlasting battery?

Forget saving her son; somebody needs to get that technology onto the market.

These may sound like petty observations, but they point towards the larger problem with The Runner. A film this improbable needs to convince us not to think about its improbabilities. Once the tension disappears, the mechanics of the concept become increasingly difficult to ignore. That is unfortunate because there is an interesting contemporary idea buried underneath all the running.

We have become extraordinarily dependent on our mobile phones. They contain our photographs, finances, calendars, conversations, locations, identities and connections to the people we love. The device designed to give us unprecedented freedom has simultaneously made us remarkably vulnerable.

The Runner taps into that anxiety. Maia may physically be running through one of the world’s largest cities, surrounded by thousands of people, yet the person on the other end of her phone controls her world. Technology connects her to her son while simultaneously becoming the mechanism through which she is manipulated. There is something distinctly modern about that predicament.

Unfortunately, the screenplay never develops the idea enough to make it particularly profound. Instead, the technology primarily serves the thriller mechanics, and those mechanics become increasingly difficult to believe.

Gadot deserves credit for carrying so much of the film herself. Playing opposite a voice while remaining physically active for most of the running time is no small task. Yet despite the commitment of its cast, The Runner never generates the sustained tension necessary to make the audience emotionally exhausted alongside Maia. At just under an hour and a half, the film certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome. Yet somehow a movie about a woman constantly running still struggles to go anywhere particularly interesting.

What should parents know?

The Runner is an action thriller centred on the kidnapping of a child and the psychological torment of his mother. The threat to Maia’s son remains the driving force throughout the film, which may be distressing for younger or more sensitive viewers.

There is action violence, threats, peril and some intense sequences as Maia is forced into increasingly dangerous situations. The story also deals with criminal behaviour and the manipulation of technology and personal information. While not among the most graphic thrillers available, its subject matter and sustained threat make it better suited to teenagers and adults.

REEL DIALOGUE: Is God’s love like a mother’s love?

For all its improbable twists and technological anxieties, The Runner ultimately depends upon something remarkably simple for its emotional power. A mother loves her son.

Everything Maia does is driven by that relationship. She runs because her son is in danger. She endures because her son needs her. Her own safety becomes secondary to the possibility of saving him. There is something extraordinarily powerful about a parent’s willingness to sacrifice for their child.

The Bible regularly uses parental imagery to help us understand something of God’s relationship with humanity. One of the most beautiful examples comes from Isaiah:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” — Isaiah 49:15

The comparison is striking. God points towards one of the strongest bonds we understand — the love of a mother for her child — and then says that His faithfulness goes even further.

Human love, even at its very best, remains imperfect. Parents become exhausted. We make mistakes. We disappoint our children. Relationships can become strained and, tragically, sometimes even break down.

Yet God’s love is not dependent upon our ability to earn it.

Romans 5:8 tells us: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

That is sacrificial love.

Maia runs because she believes her son’s life depends upon what she is willing to endure. Christianity presents an even greater picture: Jesus willingly gives His life for people who could never rescue themselves.

There is also something wonderfully unconditional about this kind of love. A mother does not stop in the middle of rescuing her child to calculate whether that child has behaved well enough to deserve saving. Love acts because of the relationship.

This is where The Runner, perhaps unintentionally, provides its most meaningful conversation.

How far would you go for someone you love?

For Maia, the answer seems to be almost anywhere. The Christian story tells us how far God was prepared to go for us.

All the way to the cross.

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