Can we all agree at this point that Gal Gadot is pretty limited as a performer? There’s no shame in acknowledging a limit of range for actors, as many beloved actors have their bandwidths that allow them to excel, even if they are narrow (I’m thinking actors like Harrison Ford or Rami Malek). Placing Gadot in constant motion seems like a possible solution, and The Runner looks like somebody combined Phone Booth and Run Lola Run, except it’s not nearly as good as either of those two predecessors. The problem with this movie is that it’s a concept that makes little sense the more you consider it. Gadot plays Maia Martin, a prosecutor leading a case against a mob boss. It just so happens the villain has hired the Chatty Assassin to kidnap Maia’s son, put him into a diabetic coma, and coerce her into murdering the lead witness in the case. She’ll have to make this happen in real-time during her morning run while the Chatty Assassin hacks her phone and teases her about her past. If you’re a crime boss, why are you paying an assassin to go to improbable lengths to engineer someone else to kill the target when the assassin could just kill them? Just because it’s revealed that Maia killed her abusive father as a young child doesn’t mean she knows what she’s doing as a would-be assassin. This family back-story seems artlessly intrusive, with the Chatty Assassin using it to try and pick at Maia’s delicate psyche. Maybe that’s why he also shames her for taking lingerie photos for her boyfriend on her phone. Much of the movie is watching a heavy-breathing Gadot run through the streets and alleys of London, terrorizing the local citizens, snatching phones, trying to find some communication end-around but really just looking like a criminal nuisance. Director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, The Mauritanian) tries to liven up the proceedings with a lively camera and docu-drama quick edits and obtrusive inserts, but it’s all trying to dress up such an un-involving and unintentionally hilarious ticking-clock thriller scenario. There’s so much downtime because the killer’s is requiring Maia to run to her location. Could she not have taken a taxi? It all leads to a preposterous ending that is trying to be clever but is so convoluted to be laughable. Especially when you consider the Chatty Assassin’s back-up plan is to blow up the whole building, why even bother with Plan A with all its damning variables to go wrong? There isn’t one great sequence that feels built out of this premise and the plot events. This movie just doesn’t work, and while Gadot doesn’t improve it, no actor could have saved this mess. Not even porting over the entire pulse-pounding soundtrack to Run Lola Run could have saved this limp 75-minute workout video.

Nate’s Grade: D+