Runner

Currently only in theaters

Runtime: 1 Hour and 37 Minutes

Rated PG-13

"Keep my hand on the package. Secure the bird if you can."

‍ ‍ Hank Malone (Alan Ritchson) is a “runner,” living a quiet and lonely life transporting packages, and occasionally people, for good money, no questions asked. His carefully controlled life is turned upside down when he picks up Ben Bishop (Owen Wilson), who is transporting an organ desperately needed for a little girl’s transplant.

It doesn’t take long after picking Ben up for Hank to realize they’re being followed. Someone seems determined to get their hands on the organ, and they’ll stop at nothing to take it. What should have been a simple job quickly turns into a dangerous race to get the organ to its destination before someone else gets to them first.

Themes:‍ ‍

Organ transplants, the black market, sobriety, commitment, divorce, liver cancer, self-sacrifice, price of life, heroism, redemption, loss, fatherhood, the Columbia Drug Cartel,

Language:

A*s - 4 D*mn - 2 Hell - 5 Piss - 1 Sh*t - 4 Religious Exclamation - 1

Stuff to be aware of: (Some of this may be considered spoiler territory)

Alcohol & Drugs - A character is involved in AA meetings, which is a big part of his character, and several scenes have people drinking.

• Characters mention drinking, and a couple mentions that they didn’t want to drink and drive, so they left their car where it was and did a rideshare.

• While drugs are not an active part of the movie, a Colombia drug cartel is.

‍ Gross - Some blood is seen on clothes and faces.

• Someone gets stabbed with a syringe.

‍ ‍LGBTQ - None

‍ ‍Scary - Normal action movie sequences that are more intense than scary.

• Several people die during the course of the movie and there are some high speed car chases.

‍ ‍Sexual - A man is seen shirtless.

• A woman with a tight dress walks out of a room where an older man in his boxer shorts is. He seems hungover, and the scene insinuates that he slept with the woman.

• A person describes a woman as evil and that she will “hang you from the ceiling by your testicles.”

‍ ‍Violence/Gore - There is plenty of action-movie violence, but nothing beyond what you would typically expect from a PG-13 Marvel movie. This includes multiple scenes of characters fighting and beating one another up, as well as people being shot and shown bleeding. While the action is frequent, the violence never becomes overly graphic or gory.

• A woman talks about wanting to murder her ex-husband.

• A gunshot is heard with a flash inside a car, and a dead body is rolled out.

• A person threatens to cut someone’s liver out and feed it to their children.

• A few men get limbs twisted with a bone-crunching sound.

• Several tools used for torture are shown, but none are deployed.

• A dead man in a car is shown up close.

• A few men get killed by being thrown into a tire that is spinning on a turned-over car.

• A woman scratches a man’s head, making him bleed.

• The big finale is very intense, with characters bleeding heavily.

• A man inspects a person’s gunshot wound, and it looks very bad.

‍ ‍Religion - None

‍ ‍Other - There is a character with liver cancer, and many scenes take place in a hospital.

Overall:‍ ‍

Seeing It With Your Family

Is this a “family movie?” Not really, but as an Angel Studios movie, it is a lot cleaner than many action-comedy movies (especially 90s ones). If your family has seen a fair share of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, this is about on par with what you’ve already seen. There may be a little less cursing than a Marvel movie, and while the fight scenes can be intense, the blood and violence are never overly graphic or gory. Overall, it never feels like it’s pushing the limits of its PG-13 rating.

What I Thought

I went into this movie with really no expectations. I had seen a trailer, so I got the gist, and it seemed to fit the generic ’90s action-movie formula. The hero, played by Alan Ritchson, is a retired Navy SEAL, a recovering alcoholic, and got divorced due to a family tragedy. The comedic sidekick, Owen Wilson, never stops talking and has a witty comment for everything. The MacGuffin has to be delivered within a certain amount of time, and, of course, the bad guys want it.

See? They checked all the boxes, right?

However, what makes this one fun, and helps it stand out, are the emotional beats surrounding the child with cancer who desperately needs the organ they’re delivering, along with a villain who actually has a believable and understandable reason for wanting the package.

While the story itself is fairly predictable, Owen Wilson and Alan Ritchson keep it alive. Ritchson’s no-nonsense, gentle-giant personality mixed with Wilson’s fast-talking, everybody-loves-me charm is certainly something we’ve seen before, but the two play off each other well enough to keep the audience laughing and invested. No, it likely won’t win any awards or become one of those movies you watch over and over until you can quote every line. But it does have heart, and it delivers some nostalgic vibes from the buddy action-comedies we used to see a lot more often.

Runner is a fun ride and well worth checking out once, if not a couple of times.