Film Review – The Runner

September 3rd, 2026 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

It’s impressive just how underwhelming The Runner (2026) is. This is one of those films that is so bad that it’s kind of entertaining in an ironic sort of way. I almost want to recommend it just so people can bear witness to all the silly hijinks. But let’s get one thing straight right away: this is not a good movie. This is a thriller that does very little in delivering actual thrills. It fails in almost every discernible way: in story, character, performance, cinematography, editing, music, action, suspense – you name it. However, to its credit, it never drags. The forward momentum stays steady from beginning to end. It’s also under ninety minutes long, so it doesn’t stick around long enough for us to get tired of it. 

A decade has passed since Gal Gadot first shot to stardom in Wonder Woman (2017). Since then, her work has been less than ideal, with Red Notice (2021), Death on the Nile (2022), Heart of Stone (2023) and Snow White (2025) being just a few of the forgettable entries in her credits list. I maintain that given the right circumstances, Gadot can be a highly charismatic presence, as proven in the aforementioned Wonder Woman series as well as the Fast & Furious franchise. The Runner does not give her that opportunity. The writing (Mark Gibson) saddles her with flat, awkward lines of dialogue that would be difficult for anyone to pull off convincingly. And the narrative does not give her a chance to showcase her natural charm. She is just another generic character inside of a generic crime drama.

Gadot plays Maia, a prosecutor living with her young son Noah (Rory Wilmot) in London. Maia is in the middle of an important trial in which she oversees the protection of a key witness. Their testimony can help take down a notorious crime boss. After dropping Noah off at school, Maia decides to go on a quick run before heading to work. That quick run takes a drastic turn when she receives a call from a mysterious stranger (Damian Lewis) who tells her that he has kidnapped Noah. The Caller orders Maia to run across London on foot to the hotel where the witness is staying. When she arrives, Maia must kill them. If she does not get there within an hour, Noah will die. In just one of the several ridiculous twists, we learn that Noah is diabetic, which adds an additional layer of desperation to Maia’s predicament. What follows is Maia’s journey throughout London, crossing parks, city streets, subways, back alleys, bridges, and waterways to get to her destination and save Noah. All the while, The Caller remains on the phone, guiding her along the way.

The premise is simple enough, with a character having to go from Point A to Point B in a race against the clock. This isn’t anything new. We have seen versions of this story told before, from the Johnny Depp starring Nick of Time (1995) to Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995). Unfortunately, director Kevin Macdonald structures the narrative with a heavy hand. With cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and editor Sam Rice-Edwards, Macdonald creates a visual palette that is jarring and abrasive. When Maia first speaks to The Caller and realizes that her son has been abducted, the camera swirls around her, cutting between multiple angles of her face with hyperactive intensity. Later, when Maia has run for a while and starts feeling the effects of exhaustion, the camera switches shutter speed to create a jagged, stuttering visual display. These instances are meant to reflect her distressed mental state, but they occur so randomly that the result feels like a gimmick.

Perhaps these cinematic tricks were meant to distract us from just how preposterous the story is. I’m all for movies that take giant leaps and stretch the limits of believability. But context is everything. In this case, The Runner doesn’t just ask us to suspend our sense of disbelief, it asks us to suspend our sense of anything resembling reality. Whether that involves Maia evading capture from police multiple times, bumping into strangers or nearly getting ran over by vehicles, stealing other people’s phones or clothes, or by running down a subway train. Yes, you heard that right – one of the big set pieces features Maia in a full-on sprint to chase down a train to its next stop. Either she is a superhero in disguise, or we have the slowest train in film history. What I just described is only a sliver of the outlandish things that occur in this movie. The third act features one surprise after another, with the narrative trying to tie everything into a nice bow but leaving us even more befuddled.

The most egregious aspect of The Runner are the themes it presents regarding technology, smartphones, and A.I. There is an entire running bit where – through Maia and The Caller’s conversations – the narrative points out society’s over reliance on their devices, how people are unaware of their surroundings because they are too focused on texting or social media, and how we would be better off unplugging from the internet once and awhile. The Caller tracks Maia through her phone’s GPS – he even hacks into it to display Noah’s glucose levels as a reminder of what is at stake. The film’s supposed ridicule of all things tech would make sense except for the fact that 1) It’s produced by Amazon, one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and 2) Gal Gadot just recently defended her participation in an upcoming film that heavily utilizes generative A.I. The ideas presented here are not only done so in bad faith but provide very little insight beyond surface level readings.

The sad thing about The Runner is that it takes itself too seriously. The weaknesses of any movie can be forgiven if it  – at the very least – has a little fun. That element is badly missing here. My guess is that those that will enjoy this will do so in ways opposite of the film’s intentions. I admire Gal Gadot for sticking with the action genre, and I still believe she can deliver a good performance in the right role. But this is not one of those times. 

Anthony Dod Mantle, Damian Lewis, Death on the Nile, Die Hard With A Vengence, Fast & Furious, Gal Gadot, Heart of Stone, Johnny Depp, Kevin Macdonald, Mark Gibson, Nice of Time, Red Notice, Rory Wilmot, Sam Rice-Edwards, Snow White, The Runner, Wonder Woman