Comment about the film itself and not Charles' synopsis:

Richard Dawson's hammy, over-the-top performance in that movie is wonderful. He acts circles around everyone else in it. Worth seeing just for Dawson alone.

SECOND RATE!?! I guess Charles is gonna troll no matter what.

The Running Man--great movie, or greatest movie?

It still blows my mind that of all the 80s sci-fi dystopias, this one has come the closest to reality.

Yes, the economic specifics are different, however for most of us personally the economy has collapsed and never recovered. Whether this billionaire or that billionaire has more million$ than before 2008 is both infuriating and irrelevant. Europe is in even worse shape.

What the writers of the era didn't anticipate is that yuuuuge numbers of people would want to be lied to and to live in a totalitarian dictatorship due rampant racism and xenophobia.

I just hope our Twitler nightmare has the same happy ending as The Running Man.

Haha, I just watched this movie over the weekend too. I guess I'm streaming the same movies as Charles! It's on Amazon Prime.

I found The Running Man delightfully cheesy, as I do with almost every Ahnold film that includes the line "I'll be back." I also agree with @2 that the short story by Richard Bachman (Stephen King) is worth a read.

But as far as prescient films for the Trump era go, Idiocracy takes the cake.

I think it's important to understand the difference between "fake news" and "government deception". Fake news is generally better described as opinion masquerading as news; especially when that opinion is incredulous - ie, Trump's Voter Fraud comments.

@1 Good point. That part really makes or breaks the movie. If it was done with too much camp, it would undermine the life/death seriousness. The game show angle forces some corniness, but Dawson displays some real evil in his eyes that makes him very scary.

"Indeed, the scarcities that produce poverty in our times are not natural (the base), but the consequence of laws and their enforcement (the superstructure)."

I don't disagree with the author here. Having said that, it's interesting to compare the above quote with the Stranger's general editorial position, that we need more regulation for everything from Food to Housing.......

I have recently seen ads for a Showtime documentary, "Prison Fighters: 5 Rounds to Freedom," about prisons in Thailand.

@10 that's a massive misunderstanding (I'd wager you are being intentionally ignorant or obtuse) of The Strangers / the liberal left's position on housing and food.