Runner opens at 72% Tomatoes with Ritchson still arguing in the corridor

Scott Waugh's Runner is in theaters today, PG-13, about 97 minutes, Angel Studios on the ticket, Alan Ritchson as former soldier Hank Malone and Owen Wilson as Ben Bishop. The published logline is a medical delivery, a cartel, a little girl on the other end of a clock. I am not recapping which detour eats the liver. I am reading the weather. Rotten Tomatoes, this morning, shows 72 percent from 39 reviews. Metacritic shows 56 mixed from 12. Those two numbers are not a fight I need to referee. They are a reminder that a Tomato can look Fresh while a Metascore still says shrug.

The sample moved all week. Collider had it in the mid 60s earlier. Some roundups were in the 50s with barely a dozen notices. Forty reviews is still a thin Friday, not a locked monument. Thin Fridays are honest if you say they are thin. I will not pretend 72 is a coronation. I will not pretend 56 is a burial. Both cards are a chase movie that a lot of people found watchable and almost nobody is calling a classic.

A 72 and a 56 can both be true. One is a crowd. One is a shrug.

RogerEbert.com's Peter Sobczynski, filing today, landed at 3 out of 4 and used the phrase weirdo charm, which is the kindest way to say a formula worked harder than it had any right to. Variety's Todd Gilchrist called it clunky duct tape held together by Wilson and Ritchson and still admitted he wanted to see them again. The Hollywood Reporter liked the visceral staging and got tired of the brutality plus a tragic beat it called unearned. That spread is the review. Charm versus clunk. Muscle versus sentiment. If you need a single noun, the noun is hybrid.

Waugh is a former stuntman with Expend4bles on the resume. That is not an insult. It is a warning about what the camera wants. The camera wants impacts. Ritchson wants to be more than impacts after four seasons of Reacher. Wilson wants to be the human speed bump who still gets lines. Hybrids live or die on whether the speed bump is a character or a mascot. Early notices keep saying the pair is the duct tape. Duct tape can be a compliment. Duct tape can also be the only reason a bumper is still on the car.

I mapped this weekend's corridor in September maps four theatrical aisles. Runner is the velocity slot next to Practical Magic 2's reunion and The Uprising's mud. Resident Evil still owns next Friday in eleven days is the Resident Evil aisle. Velocity movies need a crowd that wants to clap at a crash. Reunion movies need a crowd that wants to cry at a sister. If your plex is playing all three on the same hallway, you are shopping, not worshipping. Shopping is allowed. Worship is a press release.

Angel Studios as distributor is part of the grade. This is not a $200 million superhero apology. It is a wide PG-13 chase that wants families who can sit through cartel menace without an R. Family-plus-cartel is a weird aisle. Weird aisles can print money. Weird aisles can also feel like two trailers stapled together. The 72 percent says enough critics bought the staple. The 56 says the staple is visible. Visible staples are not a sin in September. September is a corridor month.

I am not inventing box office. Tracking chatter had this in a modest wide lane, not a record. Actuals are tomorrow's math. Reviews desk does not owe you a fake midnight gross so the headline can look like a market. The market is still a Tomato, a Metascore, and a 97-minute runtime that does not have time to become an epic. Short chases are a mercy. Mercies are how you forgive formula.

Ritchson is the reason this exists as a Friday conversation instead of a VOD shrug. He has a Prime Video engine running in the same month, Reacher's season winding down and a Neagley spinoff five days out. Theatrical Ritchson is a different product than streaming Ritchson. Theatrical wants a two-hour body. Streaming wants a serial body. If you liked the serial body, this is the test of whether the two-hour body can joke. Notices say he can, mostly. Mostly is a review word I trust more than a percentage.

Theatrical Ritchson is a two-hour body. Streaming Ritchson is a serial. Today is the two-hour test.

What I will not do is recap the little girl's medical stakes into a tear sheet. Premise only. A clock, a delivery, a cartel. If the last act's tragic furniture is unearned, as The Hollywood Reporter argued, that is a craft note you can feel without a spoiler map. Unearned tragedy is how chase movies try to graduate. Graduation is optional. I would rather a clean sprint than a sermon. Some critics wanted both. Wanting both is how you get a 56 and a 72 in the same morning.

Runtime furniture again, because 97 minutes is a position. You cannot hide a bad middle in 97 minutes. You also cannot hide a good joke. If Wilson is funny, you notice. If the stunts repeat, you notice. First notices say both things are happening. That is a Friday I can live with. I would rather a movie that repeats a stunt than a movie that repeats a theme for 140 minutes and calls it class.

Selfish ticket advice. Sit where the crashes still have scale. If your plex's sound is a polite whisper, this movie becomes a podcast with punching. If you only have one ticket this weekend and you wanted witches, buy witches. If you wanted mud and a ploughman, buy mud. If you wanted to watch a large man and a drawling man try to save a cooler, this is the cooler. Coolers are a genre. Genres are allowed to be 72 percent.

I keep the slug honest even though the Tomato moved. Sixty-five was an earlier weather report. Seventy-two is this morning's. Weather moves. The movie does not. The movie is still a PG-13 chase with Ritchson, Wilson, Scott Waugh, and a distributor that wants a crowd. I am grading the crowd object, not yesterday's screenshot. Screenshots of aggregators are how people fight on the internet instead of buying a seat.

Last review sentence. Runner is Fresh-looking and mixed-feeling at the same time, which is the most 2026 sentence I can print without lying. If you want craft fireworks, look elsewhere on the hallway. If you want a weirdo charm sprint that knows it is a sprint, this is the sprint. Do not stay for a masterpiece. Stay for two actors holding a bumper on with tape. Tape is not nothing. Tape is how a lot of good Friday nights start.

I will also say this about Wilson, because muscle gets the poster. Charm is the reason a 97-minute chase does not become a mute. If he is only there to be punched next to, the 72 will decay. If he is there to be a person who talks while the car is already ruined, the 72 might hold. Holding is tomorrow's problem. Today's problem is a hallway with three movies and one body.