One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

There's so many defects and so many qualities about "Night of the Running Man" that in the end all we get is a bad film that is quite good and a good film that is ridiculously bad. The idea is almost an encounter between "Collateral" and "No Country for Old Men" but without the same dynamism and quality of both films. Dialogs are poorly written and very very simplistic to the point of annoyance, and the situations are predictable, implausible and incredibly unrealistic. It's a very silly movie!Poor Andrew McCarthy suffers hell after finding a suitcase full of money in his cab, left by one of his unusual passengers. It looks like the mob is trying to get back the money and they hired a dangerous hit-man (Scott Glenn) to find it. On one side there's Andrew running away from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City and then Los Angeles, and on the other side, Glenn's tactics to find this dumb guy, who seems to be getting really smart after this sudden lucky strike. The most obvious clichés of the world are used here again and again.However, the great surprise of this movie are the villains and their methods of doing their job. Glenn is very effective as the scary guy who kills everybody on his way, the kind of guy who doesn't trust anybody. He's very terrifying. And there's another villain, played by John Glover, who is very scary and because of his torture methods that the film gets interesting (when he puts McCarthy's feet on boiling water to prevent him from running away). That scene alone worths the whole film.But this movie cannot escape of its negative aspects. Fight scenes are badly executed; lots of laughable parts; the amazing fact of a guy who had his feet burned walking on crutches one day later after the incident (at least put him on a wheelchair when walking out of the hospital, then I would believe just a little); the presentation of both major characters are terrible, you don't even have time to relate or care for the hero, he's simply thrown on the screen and we "have" to like him. Uninteresting as an action film or as a thriller, and a little bit funny as a drama, "Night of the Running Man" is good in making us wondering why good actors allow themselves to waste their talents in such a simplistic and dull project where their skills aren't well used. It's not a complete waste of time but when you think of the possibilities of doing better things on a boring day, you won't even feel guilty of missing this, even if you admire the people involved in this. 5/10

Erstwhile 80's Brat Pack thesp Andrew McCarthy is unexpectedly strong and engaging as a sweet, luckless Las Vegas cab driver who inadvertently takes possession of a million dollars worth of mob money and promptly hotfoots it out of town. Scott Glenn delivers a nastily dead-on turn as the cocksure, steely, unflappable underground hit-man troubleshooter assigned by a Sin City Mafia don (Wayne Newton, the King of the Strip himself, in a surprisingly convincing cameo) to retrieve the stolen loot (don't miss the truly super scene where Glenn slices up a would-be mugger's eyes and gleefully snarls to the whining, freshly blinded man, "Get a dog!"). Greatly enlivened by B-movie action maestro Mark ("Truck Stop Women," "Commando") Lester's briskly smooth, straightforward direction, further enhanced by a splendidly scuzzy appearance by the ever-slimy John Glover as Glenn's equally detestable and overconfident Los Angeles partner in crime, a genuinely beguiling performance by the cute, perky Janet Gunn as the kind, cuddly nurse who comes to the battered, beleaguered McCarthy's aid, a few fun, clever plot twists, a welcome and refreshing sense of neatly realized inner logic and rationality (yes, this flick is actually very smart and doesn't actively insult the viewer's intelligence), an appropriately hard and gritty no-nonsense tone, a nonstop snappy pace, some good old fashioned (pretty graphic) sex and violence, and authentically tacky Las Vegas and Los Angeles locations, this rip-snorting little corker really makes the grade as a tense, tasty, and, most importantly, quite trashy chase action thriller.

After catching this film on cable last night, I looked forward to going on IMDb so I could gleefully tear it apart; however, I see from other viewers' comments that it's going to be tough to say something original. (Check out the other comments; some of them are quite amusing.)I call this a "good bad movie" because it's a truly bad movie that is bad in ways that make it entertaining. It has what might be called an idiot plot--one that works only because every major character behaves like an idiot. Once you accept that premise, however, you can enjoy the film on its own terms.As is explained in greater detail in some of the other posted comments, the film concerns a Las Vegas cab driver (Idiot No. 1) named Jerry Logan (Andrew McCarthy), who inherits a suitcase containing a million dollars after one of his fares is killed while trying to abscond with the money from the casino at which he worked. When the casino owner (Wayne Newton) learns that a cabbie probably has his money, he arranges for a contract killer (Idiot No. 2) named Eckhart (Scott Glenn, playing against type), to get the money back.A key element of the plot is that Eckhart is told to eliminate the cabbie. That and the fact that Eckhart is a sadistic bastard make it clear that Logan won't be able to talk his way out of the mess that he's in. Indeed, the one logical thing about his behavior is the realization that if Eckhart catches him, he's dead meat, whether he gives up the money or not. His only hope therefore is to escape, and if he does that, he might as well hang onto the money. Otherwise, however, Logan behaves like an idiot throughout the film.What follows is loaded with SPOILERS (as are most of the comments on this film), so don't read on if you don't want to know what happens in the film.Soon after Logan discovers the money, Eckhart comes after him and gives him good reason to believe that he's in deadly peril. What does he do after he makes his first narrow escape from Eckhart? He goes to the train station, buys a ticket in own name, and then gets coffee in the station cafe, where he tells the waitress where he plans to get off the train.Needless, to say, Eckhart easily catches up with Logan, only to have the guy slip away from him in a crowded airport. This sort of thing happens repeatedly: Eckhart catches Logan and has the million dollars within his grasp, only to let the dope slip out of his hands. Despite his sadistic professionalism, Eckhart is too stupid to get the job done when he has the chance. Logan, on the other hand, is just clever enough to get away but not clever enough to avoid leaving clues for Eckhart to find him quickly.After Logan lands at Los Angeles Airport, he hops into the first cab that comes along. It turns out that this cab is being driven by Idiot No. 3, Derek Mills (John Glover), another hit man whom Eckhart has tipped off about Logan's arrival. Possibly even more sadistic than Eckhart, Mills takes Logan to his own house, where he boils Logan's feet to keep him from running away. Figuring that Logan is in such great pain that he can't run away, he unties the poor schnook and leaves him writhing on the floor in agony.Why Mills keeps Logan alive while awaiting Eckhart's arrival is unclear, but he does nothing to secure Logan's bag full of money and proceeds to fall asleep in a chair. Logan then musters the strength to crawl across the room, knock out Mills with a conveniently placed hand weight, and then make it out of the house with the money. As later events demonstrate, he should have had the brains to bash Mills on the head a few more times. Had he done that, he probably would have escaped safely. However, Mills recovers, sets Eckhart on Logan's trail again, and later comes back to cause Logan even more trouble.Meanwhile, Logan awakens in a hospital room, where he is being tended by Idiot no. 4, the kindly nurse Chris Altman (Janet Gunn). Despite being drop-dead gorgeous, Altman is single and apparently unattached, as she immediately falls for the scruffy Logan. (And this dope considers himself unlucky?) Unfortunately, Logan's new friend Mills is also in the hospital, getting his head wound treated, and he overhears two nurses talking about the new patient with boiled feet. Soon, Eckhart comes calling yet again.After Nurse Altman tells Logan that a man is looking for him, they both escape (Logan's boiled feet slow him down considerably, but they seem to heel rapidly through the last 30 or so minutes of the film. Altman must be a damned good nurse.) Where does Nurse Altman take Logan? Why, back to her own house. It apparently doesn't occur to them that Eckhart will have no trouble figuring out where she lives and find them. He does, but not until the next morning, permitting them to spend the night in vigorous love-making--which must be part of Nurse Altman's cure, as Logan is in terrific condition the next day.Well, I think I've made my point. If you want more plot details, read the other comments. The script of the film is obviously inane. Nevertheless, the film can be fun to watch (apart from several scenes of sadistic violence), if you enjoy guessing what stupid move each character will make next. I've revealed some of their moves here, but the film has plenty more that I haven't described.Oh ... one final spoiler. The film ends with Logan and Altman blowing up the latter's car with the dead bodies of the two hit men in it. Another commentator on this page suggests that they burn the car so that the "mob" will think that they (i.e., Logan and Altman) are dead and stop looking for them. I don't buy that interpretation. So far as I could tell, before Eckhart gets killed, he goes back to Las Vegas and kills most of the people who might know who Logan is. Moreover, wouldn't Eckhart's own disappearance raise questions about who was in the burned-out car? In any case, I don't think anyone in the mob knows about Nurse Altman, except Eckhart and Mills--who are dead--so there would be no reason to connect Logan with the car anyway. But it doesn't much matter. This film ain't really worth this much analysis.

This is an extremely suspenseful, lighting paced thriller about a cab driver (Andrew McCarthy - Weekend at Bernies) who finds a suitcase full of money in his cab when a mysterious man leaves it there after being chased by the Mafia. He foolishly decides to keep the money and its not long until a cold faced hitman (brilliantly played by Scott Glenn - Backdraft) is on his case. From here begins a deadly game of cat and mouse. Its intense stuff alright and includes one particular torture scene which makes Michael Madsen's ear slicing incident in 'Reservoir Dogs' look like an extract from Sesame Street!. John Glover (Gremlins 2) is a stand out as Glenn's crackpot associate.