Apparently, you can make a tedious thriller. Who knew? Here it is. The Runner, an exercise for people who like being annoyed by cat-n-mouse movie thriller games. In this particular film, I’m not sure you’ll like the heroine or the villain, but, too bad, that’s all you get in this giant London-based waste-of-time. 99% of screen time involves at least one of those characters.
Maia Marten (Gal Gadot) is a prosecutor, and despite the film claiming she’s a good one, she’s incredibly slow on the uptake when her diabetic pre-teen is abducted while she’s out for a run. I mean, seriously, this is the morning of a big trial where you’re attempting to put a crime boss away for good and *by gosh* who could have stolen my child? The fact that there wasn’t even extra security on herself or her child on this day speaks to exactly how poorly this entire plot was conceived.
Nevertheless, the kid has been stolen and a voice in Maia’s headset (Damian Lewis) instructs her to not veer from a path that has her assassinate her star witness within the hour. Before doing so, however, she’s got to run another five miles to the witness stronghold.
Coming off as both whiny and daft, Gal Gadot has picked this moment to deliver the worst performance of her professional career, which is a shame as we could probably get behind the mother of a kidnap victim otherwise. Luckily, there are many “things that can’t really happen in real life” going on in this film to distract from the bad plot and bad performances. These include, but is not limited to:
- “The Caller” has a constant connection to both Maia and her interactions through her phone, meaning he can see what she sees, type what she types, and control her movements. He also has a feed on her boss, so at any given time, The Caller knows where Maia is and exactly what’s going on. Yeah, ok. If you say, so, movie.
- In order to save the day, Maia commits crime after crime after crime. It’s kind of embarrassing, especially as she’s really bad at it; and there’s the part where London is the most photographed city in the world. Any savvy operator with clearance should be able to backtrack any major crime within seconds.
- Maia gets hit by a car, falls unconscious, then recovers to keep to her schedule.
- After which, Maia outruns a subway train. Literally watches it go and then beats it to the next stop. Without running on the tracks. Sure. Cuz of course that can happen. Especially with a recent victim of head trauma.
With all of the control The Caller has over the situation, even the most imbecilic of viewers will 
say, “Why doesn’t he just kill the witness himself?” The odds that the task will be completed and he gets away cleanly both skyrocket. The Runner has set up a situation where The Caller will get caught, period. And when that happens, The Caller will be guilty of Murder One, even in England. Making the prosector run five miles just to assassinate a witness all in under an hour? None of that makes sense. And isn’t she due in court earlier than the witness?
This whole premise is baked in faulty leverage. Yes, on paper, you can get a mother to kill someone to save her son, but what if she says, “No?” I mean, you really have nothing here. Killing the child accomplishes zilch on its own, so – if mom gets an inkling that she’s dealing with someone untrue to his word – there’s actually little incentive for mom to do anything but investigate the kidnapping, which destroys the entire premise.
There’s so much stupid going on in this film that I am loathe to describe it all. I will point out the film wasted no opportunity to show Gal Gadot’s ass in spandex tights. I counted a dozen separate shots before we even had a kidnapping. I suppose I cannot blame the editor here. If you haven’t got much, you gotta use what you can. And, yet, I can but guess that the contract Gal Gadot signed explicitly mentioned how many shots of her rear there were going to be because there were just too many to be an accident.
Amazon Prime was responsible for the worst film of 2025, an idiotic sci-fi retelling of War of the Worlds. Prime was also responsible for 2025 runner-up worst Playdate. And let’s not forget the worst film of 2026, Melania. The Runner isn’t as bad as those films, but, wow, Prime, you sure don’t seem to have figured out this movie thing yet, have you?
There once was a lawyer named Maia
Her child was kidnapped, good Gaia
The Caller knows a lot
And seems to call the shot
These two characters you will find both annoy ya
Rated PG-13, 85 Minutes
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Writer: Mark Gibson
Genre: Movies for people who aren’t good at movies
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Gal Gadot fans, I think
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of reality
