★★ (2 out of 4)
First of all, do not confuse “Runner” starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson with “The Runner,” the Gal Gadot trainwreck that debuted last week on Prime Video and earned a disastrous 7 percent out of a 100 rating that now seems generous. Both films are about saving a child, but Gadot’s Wonder Woman went splat while Ritchson, on leave from busting heads on “Reacher,” still stands tall. Don’t get me wrong, “Runner” is no great shakes as escapism, but it doesn’t make you want to swear off movies for weeks to recover.
OK, that’s settled. So what is “Runner?” It’s a workable way to kill time until your brain starts kicking in again. Ritchson takes the role of a human brick wall named Hank Malone. He’s an American, a recovering alcoholic working odd jobs in Brisbane, Australia, mostly to forget a failed marriage and a death in the family. Sounds grim, but it’s not. Hank is looking for distractions and he gets what he’s looking for. “I don’t hurt people anymore,” says Hank, knowing in his gut that is one promise he’s not keeping.
You can figure out everything you need to know just from the typecasting.
One day Hank is on the job as a runner, transporting things for his boss. It starts with a parakeet in a custody case that leaves him with the bird. Next he’s picking up a medical package at the airport. It contains a liver for a seven-year-old child who may die without it and the liver is only viable for three hours. Lucky for Hank, the cooling unit that houses the organ comes with a medical courier named Ben Bishop. That’s Wilson, who seems good for a laugh, a gift that hardly comes in handy when a drug cartel comes hunting for the package that’s worth a million bucks on the black market because of the rare blood type.
Enter Damian Zaldívar, a garishly tattooed gangster played to the manner born by Rodrigo Santoro. He wants the liver for—wait for it—his cartel queen of a mom (Cecilia Toussaint).
That means he’ll do anything to stop the organ from reaching the hospital. The race is on. Ben is less than no help and Wilson dithers with a very believable incompetence. Hank, a former Navy Seal, is the opposite, or as he puts it, “I’m not a man that people successfully mess with.”
But we know all that just from the typecasting. Given the connect-the-dots nature of the plot, it’s surprising that the rudimentary script by Miles Hubley and Tommy White was included in the 2023 “Black List” of the most-liked unproduced screenplays. The odd-couple comic rapport between Ritchson and Wilson comes in way handier. That and director Scott Waugh (“Expend4bles,” “Hidden Strike”), a former stuntman who specializes in punchy pandemonium. Nothing too violent. Coming from the faith-based Angel Studios, “Runner” never pushes too hard against the boundaries of its PG-13 rating.
Actually, “Runner” pushes so softly it barely leaves an impression. The script really turns on the tears near the end, with Hank trying to redeem past sins and Leila George coming on like gangbusters as the sick child’s mother. But there’s no angel on the shoulder of this uneasy mix of jolts and jests and sentiment. Even with the mighty Ritchson doing the running, “Runner” limps across the finish line with no victory in sight.