“Runner” key art featuring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson.
Angel Studios
Angel Studios’ Runner, an action comedy starring Reacher star Alan Ritchson and comedy great Owen Wilson, is new in theaters and has won over a good number of critics.
Directed by Scott Waugh, Runner opens in theaters nationwide on Friday. Not to be confused with Gad Gadot’s recent Prime Video critical disaster The Runner, Runner stars Ritchson as Hank Malone, a courier (aka a “runner”) of sensitive materials tasked with transporting a life-saving donor liver to save Ellie (Scarlett Crabtree), a young girl dying of liver cancer, who is awaiting in a hospital in Brisbane, Australia.
Hank can’t go it alone on his latest delivery, though, as accompanying the special cooler carrying the organ is Ben Bishop (Wilson), who is the only person who knows the code to open it. The delivery of the donor liver is crucial because Ellie has an extremely rare blood type, which gives the organ immense value on the black market.
One of the people seeking it is Damian Zaldívar (Rodrigo Santoro), a ruthless criminal who needs to secure the organ to save a dying crime lord — and Damian will go to deadly measures to ensure it will happen.
Rated PG-13, Runner also stars Leila George as Ellie’s mother, Kate, and Kate Box as Dr. Ainsley, who will be performing Ellie’s liver transplant.
As of Friday, Runner has received a 70% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer based on 43 reviews. RT’s Critics Consensus, Audience Summary and Popcornmeter score based on verified user ratings are still pending.
Runner marks the latest film starring Ritchson since his breakout role in Prime Video’s Reacher, where he plays former Army Military Police investigator-turned-citizen crime fighter Jack Reacher. While Runner’s 70% critics’ score ranks above other films Ritchson has starred in, like 2024’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (68%) and 2026’s War Machine (66%), it falls below his highest-ranked movie on RT, 2024’s Ordinary Angels (84%).
What Are Individual Critics Saying About ‘Runner’?
Adrian Horton of the Guardian is among the top critics on RT who give Runner a “fresh” score, writing, “Given the ignominious glut of straight-to-streaming background noise, it’s hard to root against a theatrical release that, knowingly or not, lands some truly cataclysmic punches with enough over-the-top silliness to force a smile.”
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter also gives Runner a “fresh” score, but he does have some issues with the film’s violence. Scheck writes in his RT review summary, “The brutality becomes off-putting after a while … On the plus side, Ritchson and Wilson display a winning chemistry, their contrasting physicality and acting styles working perfectly for their characters.”
Todd Gilchrist of Variety also has reservations about Runner but still gives the film a “fresh” score on RT, writing, “This clunky vehicle doesn’t transcend its limitations — Wilson and Ritchson’s efforts are the duct tape holding it together — but it’s much better than anyone could have expected.”
In his whimsical “fresh” take on the film on RT, William Bibbiani of The Wrap writes, “Runner is the porridge Goldilocks ate, if Goldilocks loved kicking butt and taking names.”
Peter Travers of The Travers Take is among the top critics on RT who give Runner a “rotten” score. Travers writes in his RT review summary, “Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson go through the action-comedy motions without leaving much of an impression. You can figure out everything you need to know just from the typecasting.”
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast also deems the film “rotten” on RT, calling the film “a second-hand affair that runs out of gas almost as soon as it kicks into gear.”
In his “rotten” take of the film on RT, Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph notes, “It’s the uneasy blend of ingredients here – the goofiness, the gore, the tear-jerking sentiment and the havoc – that makes for a lumpy pudding.”
Owen Wilson and Alan Ritchson in “Runner.”
Angel Studios
‘Runner’ – My Take
Rotten Tomatoes’ critics mostly got it right with their collective “fresh” take of the film on RT, as it delivers all of the hard-hitting action and thrills that you would expect out of an Alan Ritchson film.
In short, Runner could be retitled Reacher Down Under thanks to the film’s intense action, car chases and menacing criminal element, all set in and around the gorgeous vistas of Brisbane and the Gold Coast in Australia. The big difference here is that while Reacher has its share of laughs, Owen Wilson ups the ante in the comedy department as the perfect comedic foil to Ritchson’s character, who is still recovering from a deep personal loss that put his life into a tailspin.
The most interesting aspect of Runner is that it’s an Angels Studio release, the faith-based studio behind such hit features as Sound of Freedom and Young Washington. Sure, the film is mostly devoid of foul language, which keeps the film in its PG-13 sphere, but there’s no doubt the high body count in the film, along with an ample amount of blood and bullets, pushes said rating. Even Reacher, which is a TV-MA production, doesn’t have this much brutality.
Perhaps the best way to size up why Angel Studios would produce a film like Runner is that woven in between the murder and mayhem are important themes about redemption, selflessness, courage and sacrifice — the latter of which sadly becomes painfully clear in the third act of the movie in ways you wouldn’t expect.
In that regard, it makes perfect sense that the Angel Guild would throw its weight behind the film. Runner is far from a perfect film, but for what it is and the message it is trying to get across, it works wonders.
Runner opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.
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