PG-13 | 1h 38m | Buddy Film, Action, Thriller, Romance | 2026
“Runner” is sort of a lightweight, less funny, far more violent version of “Midnight Run” (1988) with Jack Reacher in the Robert De Niro role and Owen Wilson in the Charles Grodin role.
Set in Brisbane, Australia, “Reacher” star Alan Ritchson stars as Hank Malone, ex-Navy SEAL (naturally), who has just earned his one-year AA sobriety coin. Hank still carries a flame for his ex-wife (Geraldine Hakewill), along with grief about the young daughter that they lost a few years prior.
He now works as a “runner,” transporting a wide variety of items of importance from Point A to Point B at the behest of his only-heard-on-the-telephone boss, who’s got the most annoying voice since KITT the talking car in TV’s “Knight Rider” (1982–1986).
From Rare Bird to Rare Blood-Type
One particular run involves taking care of a rare and expensive talking parakeet when neither member of a vitriolic divorced couple wants it (the bird provides some of the comic relief).
For the next run, he’s tasked with running a “medical package” from an airport to a hospital. The package turns out to be a rare blood-type liver intended for otherwise-terminal 7-year-old Ellie (Scarlett Crabtree). Ben (Owen Wilson) is the happy-go-lucky-as-no-one-but-Owen-Wilson-can-portray medical courier, who, up until now, has been carrying the organ in its temperature-regulated cooler.
Ben informs Hank that he is legally bound to oversee that said organ arrives safely at its final destination. Despite the liver’s high-tech cooler, they only have a three hour window to get to the hospital before the little girl’s body will no longer accept the new liver.
Things soon get even more complicated when, soon meeting and having a round of odd-couple bickering, they discover they’re being tailed by a violent drug cartel which hired a local outlaw biker gang to do their dirty work. The cartel is headed up by Damien (Rodrigo Santoro), who has other plans for the million-dollar black market-value liver.
And There You Have It
That’s pretty much it in terms of plot development. Most of the film is one fight scene after another, featuring the gamut: shootings, stabbings, axings, vehicular crashes, and improvised explosive devices. And my favorite: bouncing a biker’s noggin off an upside-down car’s 90-mph-spinning back wheel with such vehemence that it causes said biker to do an airborne, inverted triple-axle. He doesn’t stick the landing though.
The rare respites from nonstop, slightly cartoonish brutality mostly involve Charles Grodin-like scenes where gregarious Ben tries to get man-of-few-words, grumpy Hank to open up. Remember Grodin? “Why are you unpopular with the Chicago police department? Frank? Frank?”
Also, we see the sick girl’s mom Kate (Leila George—Vincent D’Onofrio and Greta Scaatchi’s daughter) chew her nails at the hospital waiting for the liver to arrive.
Despite the PG-13 rating, “Runner” is consistently quite violent throughout, which is not what one generally expects from the normally faith-based productions of Angel Studios. Perhaps, this is in accordance with the trend of many faith-oriented production companies wandering further afield, going deeper into the horror and violence genres, in order to be taken more seriously, and Angel Studios is following suit.
Interestingly, while “Runner” is often ridiculous, it’s more involving than one would have expected. The main reason is Ritchson, who has proven himself to be an action star to be taken seriously.
The second reason is that while Wilson’s character is annoying, Wilson is always pretty fun, and pretty funny.
The third reason is that Leila George is uncommonly lovely. She exudes bird-with-a-broken-wing vibes, and has a little girl in need of a father. This triggers immediate let-me-take-care-of-them protector instincts in Ritchson-as-Hank. Hank could use a new little daughter to take care of, you know? It’s a subtle but potent romantic chemistry, and makes the whole movie worthwhile.
All in all, “Runner” is about as generic and utility-grade an action-comedy hybrid as you can get, but the meh script is rescued by the above-noted casting.
‘Runner’
Director: Scott Waugh
Starring: Alan Ritchson, Owen Wilson, Leila George
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Release Date: Sept. 11, 2026
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
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