http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/running_man_ver31_7588.jpg
-->'''Richards''': ''"Want some coffee?"''
-->'''Donahue''': ''"No."''
-->'''Richards''': ''"Sure you do."'' (''breaks Donahue's head open with the coffee maker'')

Ben Richards desperately requires money to get medicine for his [[LittlestCancerPatient ill daughter]], Cathy. To stop his wife Sheila from continuing to prostitute herself to pay the bills, Richards turns to a state-sponsored television network, which runs several [[DeadlyGame TV game shows]] that put contestants at risk of severe injury or death. Contestants win money by surviving challenges such as ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_stress_test Treadmill to Bucks]]'', where a person with a heart or respiratory condition runs on a treadmill, or the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin self-explanatory]] ''Swim the Crocodiles''. After an extensive screening process, Richards is selected for the country's most popular and dangerous game, ''The Running Man''.

After being declared a public enemy on the show, Richards is given $4,800 cash and a pocket video camera and turned loose. His family will win $100 for every hour he stays alive; if he can survive for 30 days, he wins the grand prize of $1 billion. He also gets a 12-hour head start before the network sends out a team of trackers known as "Hunters" to find and kill him. He can travel anywhere in the world, and each day he must videotape two messages and courier them to the TV show. Without these videotaped messages, he loses the prize money but the Hunters will continue their search. Despite the producer's claims to the contrary, as soon as the Network receives a videotaped message, the Hunters immediately know from the postmark the runner's approximate location. Viewers can earn cash rewards by calling the network with tips on his whereabouts. To date, there have been no survivors - and the producer frankly states that he never expects there to be any.

The story, written by StephenKing under his PenName of "Richard Bachman", is better known for its [[TheMovie film version]] with ArnoldSchwarzenegger and [[FamilyFeud Richard Dawson]], which [[InNameOnly turned the story]] into one of a BloodSport played by condemned criminals, and Richards' reason for entering the contest changes -- he was framed for a massacre that he was actually trying to stop.
----

!!The book provides examples of:

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: When Ben Richards with his last ounce of strength flips the aeroplane into autopilot and crashes it into the Games Network skyscraper. Also, the few allies Richards makes in his journey are heavily implied to die, his warnings about the mega corps poisoning the air being the cause of all the cancer spreading among the low class citizens are censored, and his wife and daughter are revealed to be dead since the beginning of the hunt.]]
** Also qualifies as HarsherInHindsight.
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: [[spoiler: Ben crashes his plane into the network tower, killing those responsible for the show.]]
* HealthcareMotivation: Richards's reason for entering the contest
* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies]]
* LittlestCancerPatient: Richards's daughter has an illness severe enough to spark her father's HealthcareMotivation and Richards meets a young lower-class black boy with a sister who is dying of lung cancer, due to the air pollution.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: The book mocks reality television show like ''Hard Copy'' that demonize people to make the audience hate them.
* WordAssociationTest: Richards gets one of these when he's trying out to get on any game show he can.

!!The film provides examples of:

* AdaptationDecay: Ben Richards in the book is "scrawny" and "pre-tubercular". Schwarzenegger... isn't.
* ActorAllusion: Just before he's launched into the Zone, Richards promises that [[TheTerminator "I'll be back."]] To say nothing of Richard Dawson's role as a game show host.
* AllOrNothing
* AltumVidetur: The gratuitous use of Latin in Richards' contract. All of it is real legal Latin, but wildly out of place.
* ArnoldSchwarzenegger: As the AntiHero.
* AssShove: Amber Mendez and the tape of the Bakersfield Massacre. Or possibly [[TrouserSpace another nearby location]].
* AttemptedRape: Dynamo
* BadBoss: Killian isn't a particularly nice man to his employees, his bodyguard Sven in particular. [[TheDogBitesBack This comes back to bite him.]]
* BloodKnight: Captain Freedom.
* BloodSport
* BondOneLiner: Some of the best in film history.
** (''cuts a man in half'') "He had to split."
** (''strangles a man with barbed wire'') "He was a pain in the neck."
** (''hurls road-flare at a flamethrower-armed Hunter with a loose gas-line'') "What a hothead."
** (before throwing a flare) "How 'bout a light?"
* [[{{BrickJoke/Film}} Brick Joke]]: Killian's bodyguard Sven and steroids.
* TheButcher: Ben Richards, "The Butcher of Bakersfield". Played with, in that Richards himself is innocent of the crime, framed by his corrupt superiors when he objected to massacring hordes of innocent people.
* CarnivalOfKillers
* TheCastShowoff: When Dynamo (Erland van Lidth) sings the aria from Act III of ''Theatre/TheMarriageOfFigaro'', he's actually singing in that scene. Presumably after he got cast, someone found out he could sing opera and decided they ''had'' to throw that in somewhere. 
* CatchPhrase: What would an Arnie movie be without at least one utterance of "I'll be back"?
** With perhaps [[CrowningMomentOfFunny the best response]] given by Killian: "Only in a rerun."
* ChainsawGood: Buzzsaw.
* CondemnedContestant
* DeadlyGame
* {{Defictionalization}}: The technology used to frame Richards by digitally swapping his face with that of the real killer is now completely real.
* DigitalHeadSwap: In-universe.
* DoNotAdjustYourSet
* ExplosiveLeash
* FashionDissonance: The Running Man's "It's Showtime!" dancers, who are a riot of spandex and big hair, firmly placing them in the 80's fashion era. 
** EightiesHair
* FutureImperfect: A TV equivalent; it's implied that a lot of TV shows have been forgotten thanks to the totalitarian government's control of the entertainment networks, and on two occasions an older character makes a reference to an old TV show (''GilligansIsland'' and ''StarTrek'') that falls flat.
* GaiasLament: Earth's resources are severely drained.
* GameShowHost: Killian. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] to a certain degree by being played by [[FamilyFeud Richard Dawson]], who has been characterized at times as a bit of an egotist behind the scenes.
* GroinAttack: Multiple examples.
* HeroicSacrifice: Laughlin shoves Richards out of the way and is mortally wounded by Buzzsaw's attack.
** Also, Richards agrees to be a contestant [[spoiler: because they threaten to use his friends as contestants instead... which of course they do anyways.]]
* HeyItsThatGuy: [[PeeWeesBigAdventure Frances]]' butler, [[StirCrazy Grossberger]], and [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Jim Brown]] all play Stalkers.
** [[Film/LiveAndLetDie Mister Big]] plays Laughlin.
** Plus [[FleetwoodMac Mick Fleetwood]] as [[TheDanza rebel leader Mic]], and Dweezil Zappa as that one rebel guy.
** Let's not forget that the game show itself is hosted by [[HogansHeroes Newkirk]].
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Each Stalker is killed with his own weapon. Killian himself is doomed by being launched into the Zone, as he had done to so many before.
* HomeGame: Given to members of the ''Running Man'' studio audience. How it's supposed to work is anybody's guess.
* IdiotBall: Even though Richards was already throughly discredited as "The Butcher of Bakersfield," the Government still insists on making up murders at the airport in order to blame them on him. This is what convinces Amber that he was framed and ultimately causes her to discover the truth. Keeping the unedited footage around was pretty dumb too.
* IKnowMaddenKombat: The hockey-themed hunter "Sub-Zero".
* InNameOnly: All that's left is the name of the hero, the last name of the main villain, the name of the show involved and a couple of plot elements - the totalitarian [[{{Dystopia}} dystopic]] society and Richards kidnapping a woman and taking her to an airport.
* IronicEcho: Multiple examples involving Killian.
-->''Hello, cutie pie. One of us is in big trouble.''
* JetPack: Used by the stalker Fireball.
* KarmicDeath: All the Stalkers except Sub-Zero and Captain Freedom.
* LargeHam: Dynamo. A fat man with blinking lights all over him driving after you in a go-kart while singing opera [[NightmareRetardant does not inspire fear.]] It's easy to say that while he's wearing pants...
* LightningGun: Dynamo's "Electrical Launcher".
* ManipulativeEditing
* MeaningfulName / NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: No one -- ''no one'' -- with a name like 'Damon Killian' is ever going to grow up to be anything but a villain.
* NotWorthKilling: "No, [[PetTheDog I won't kill a helpless human being...]][[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming not even sadistic scum...]][[CrowningMomentOfAwesome like you."]]
* OurGraphicsWillSuckInTheFuture: Apparently, wireframe computer graphics are state-of-the-art in 2019.
* ThePenIsMightier
* PublicExecution: Criminals are executed by being hunted to their deaths on TV, with a promise of freedom if they survive. 
* RedBaron: See TheButcher above.
* RedShirt
* ReleasedToElsewhere: Whitman, Price, and Haddad. Last season's winners. "No, last season's ''losers''."
** Could be an ''inversion'' of FridgeHorror, as it's unlikely that those three were innocent like Richards, who was an exception to the show's "no political prisoners" arrangement with the justice system. At least if they're ReleasedToElsewhere, they've ''not'' been set loose to resume whatever crimes got them the death penalty in the first place.
* RidiculousFutureInflation: A can of pop costs $6, and the vending machines [[TechnologyMarchesOn don't accept bills]].
* RunForTheBorder: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] when Richards tries to flee to Hawaii, instead of trying to escape the country entirely.
** Hawaii may be a different country in this setting. It may be a ShoutOut to Heinlein's ''If This Goes On...'' where someone PRETENDS to by trying to escape to Hawaii (which is a separate country) as part of a plan to make his pursuers think he's dead.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Richards, when he refuses to fire on the unarmed crowd.
* ShowWithinAShow: The TV show.
* TheScapegoat: Richards is blamed for the government-ordered massacre he tried to prevent.
* SmarmyHost: Damon Killian 
* TheStinger: The show's announcer does a voice over at the end of the credits.
* Sven, Killian's bodyguard, exemplifies the following tropes:
** BodyguardBetrayal
** TheDanza
** TheDogBitesBack
** TheDragon: Parodied and averted, with an IronicEcho to boot.
** ScrewThisImOuttaHere
* ThrowABarrelAtIt: Ben Richards does it to Fireball.
** Ben ignites it but [[OutOfTheInferno Fireball just strolls through the flame]].
* TrashcanBonfire: The outdoor scenes with crowds betting on the game.
* WeWillNotUsePhotoshopInTheFuture: The government uses edited footage to frame Richards. Later, the producers [[spoiler:edit footage of Richards being killed in an attempt to salvage his victory over the Stalkers.]]
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Dolph Lundgren and Christopher Reeve were both considered for the role of Ben Richards. Can you imagine Ivan Drago or Clark Kent taking a chainsaw to a guy's genitals?
** [[TheFugitive Andrew Davis]] was originally going to direct the film (after three previous directors pulled out) but was fired a week into production due to going overbudget and being four days behind schedule. Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky from ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'') finished the film.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome: ''Dynamo''
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Captain Freedom.
** He [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quit]] partway through the film because he became bitter about what the game had become. Granted, it's very anticlimactic, but serves as possible {{foreshadowing}} for Sven doing the same thing later at a key moment.
* WhosLaughingNow: Awesomely thrown back in Dynamo's face by Amber, of all people.
--> '''Dynamo''':Thought it was pretty funny out in the zone, didn't you? What's the matter, bitch? Why aren't you laughing?
--> '''Amber''': Because there's nothing funny about a dickless moron with a battery up his ass.
* WinYourFreedom
* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Another possible hiding place for that footage. (See AssShove.) In Amber's words, when asked about it:
-->'''Amber''' [Smirks]: "That's none of your business."
* YourHeadASplode: Richards and his fellow prisoners in the military prison. If Chico had just waited 20 more seconds at the beginning of the movie...
----
!!Both the book and the film provide examples of:
* BigBad: Killian. Arguably the people as a whole, as it's their blood lust that Killian tries to satisfy in the first place. But then "the people" experience a HeelFaceTurn...
* BreadAndCircuses: [[DeadlyGame The Running Man gameshow]] that the book and film focus on provides a large amount of money for the contestant's family, attracting men in a desperate situation who would otherwise get political. Also, a large part of the game involves encouraging the populace to report any sightings of the contestant for a monetary award. And obviously, the show keeps the citizens entertained.
* {{Dystopia}}: Similar to the one seen in ''{{The Long Walk}}''.
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture

----

to:

28th Apr '12 8:05:29 PM speedyboris

Send speedyboris a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 40 (click to see context) :

21st Apr '12 12:21:23 PM nombretomado

Send nombretomado a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 106 (click to see context) from:

to:

7th Apr '12 10:40:59 PM DoctorNemesis

Send DoctorNemesis a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 55 (click to see context) :