Pick of the week
The Running Man
Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian thriller is a conscious antidote to the 1987 Schwarzenegger version. The protagonist, Ben Richards, isn’t a hard-bitten cop but a construction worker who learns how to be an action hero, while in Glen Powell we get a less beefy, more relatable star. The Orwellian near-future setting is familiar: a US where “the Network” broadcast violent TV shows to pacify the masses. Ben enters the titular life-or-death challenge to pay for his young daughter’s medicine, hoping to evade hunters for 30 days and win a fortune. But the game is rigged … A fun action flick that would rather blow things up than hang around debating the moral issues.
Based on the bestselling novel by Shelby Van Pelt, Olivia Newman’s drama is full of hugs and learning. That the hugs come from a Giant Pacific octopus is the main quirk in an otherwise reassuring yarn touching on old age and family, grief and regret. Sally Field is the film’s strong centre as Tova, a no-nonsense cleaner at the aquarium where Marcellus – the cephalopod who narrates the story – lives. But the perceptive Marcellus has spied a hole in the widow’s heart. Can he help heal it, by way of rootless young musician Cameron (Lewis Pullman)?
Out now, Netflix
Field of Dreams
“If you build it, he will come.” This is merely the first of several ghostly commands Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner in solid everyman form) hears that inspire him to build a baseball ground in his cornfield, then go on a series of barely comprehended quests across the country. These involve a disgraced baseball star (Ray Liotta), James Earl Jones’s disillusioned radical writer and a small-town doctor (Burt Lancaster). Phil Alden Robinson’s delightful film uses fantasy elements to explore missed opportunities and faded hopes – and how we go about fixing them.
Saturday 9 May, 6pm, ITV4
The Hitcher
Rutger Hauer brings his devil-may-care charm to Robert Harmon’s supremely efficient thriller about a teenager who picks up a serial killer on a desert highway. “My mother told me never to do this,” says C Thomas Howell’s Jim Halsey when he pulls over for Hauer’s hitch-hiker John Ryder one stormy night. Clearly you should always listen to your mother, as John proceeds to butcher anyone the kid comes into contact with. A gripping cat-and-mouse game played out across gas stations, motels, diners and miles of empty road.
Saturday 9 May, 9pm, 1.10am, Legend Xtra
The Iron Claw
If this weren’t a true story, you’d be forgiven for scoffing at the implausibilities that pile up in Sean Durkin’s poignant biopic. Telling the tale of the Von Erich family of wrestlers in Texas, it is a parade of triumph and tragedy in a sometimes pitiless sport. The focus is on eldest son Kevin – a stunningly muscle-bound Zac Efron – who strives for success but finds his dad Fritz (Holt McCallany) grooming his brothers David (Harris Dickinson) and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) for world title shots instead.
Sunday 10 May, 10pm, BBC Two
Sisu
He barely says a word in the whole film, but when your role is to off Nazis in a variety of grisly ways there’s not much call for banter. Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) is a gold prospector in 1944 Lapland as the German army retreat from Finland. But he’s also known as the Immortal, due to his unstoppable killing spree against the Russians when he was a commando – which is where a small German platoon go wrong when they steal his find of the precious metal. Bloody violence ensues in a satisfyingly propulsive 2022 chase thriller from Jalmari Helander that has already spawned a sequel.
Monday 11 May, 9.30pm, Film4
Track 29
As masters of psychosexual drama, writer Dennis Potter and director Nicolas Roeg would seem perfect bedfellows. This 1988 collaboration doesn’t quite hit the spot but is disquieting and edgy enough for devotees of both. A mysterious young English man, Martin (Gary Oldman), appears at the door of bored, boozy doctor’s wife Linda (Theresa Russell), claiming to be the son taken away from her after a teenage pregnancy. He is infantile, volatile and demanding, and brings out Linda’s suppressed guilt at her loss. But is he just a figment of her tortured mind?
Thursday 15 May, 1.20am, Film4