Delivering a donated organ to a hospital may not sound like the obvious starting point for an action film, but for Runner director Scott Waugh, it was the emotion behind the mission that caught his attention.
The film stars Alan Ritchson as Hank Malone, a former Navy SEAL turned courier who has three hours to deliver an organ to a seven year old girl in need of an immediate transplant. Owen Wilson plays medical courier Ben Bishop, who ends up joining him on the increasingly dangerous journey.
Their mission becomes a race for survival when a criminal syndicate sets its sights on the same organ.
In an interview with Moviefone, Waugh said he had been looking for a more grounded action film after working on larger-scale projects.
“I wanted to find material that was a more grounded, ’80s, ’90s style action movie that just really had more character work behind the action,” he said
What ultimately drew him to Runner, however, was what its two central characters were willing to do for a child they were trying to save.
“What two men were willing to do to try to save a seven year old girl, and what one man was willing to do to stop them, was what really captivated me,” he said.
The film takes inspiration from the buddy action movies Waugh grew up watching, with the director pointing to Midnight Run as one influence.
For him, the contrast between Ritchson and Wilson was also part of the appeal. Hank brings the physical force, while Ben is the fast-talking medical courier unexpectedly caught up in the action.
Waugh said he was interested in telling a story about “ordinary men becoming extraordinary”, with the pair pushed to increasingly extreme lengths as they race to complete the delivery.
The action itself also changed significantly during development. Runner was originally written as a nighttime chase through rainy Los Angeles, but the story was eventually relocated to Australia, with filming taking place around Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
That move gave Waugh the opportunity to build large-scale car sequences into the journey, including a final ambulance chase that he described as a highlight of his directing career.
“I really wanted to try to transcend the car racing,” Waugh told AFP, saying he wanted to create “a new visceral ride that no one’s ever experienced before”.
For Waugh, the result is intended to be more than a race against the clock, combining the action with humour and an emotional story about how far two strangers will go to save someone else’s life.
Runner is now playing in UAE cinemas.
Source: Khaleej Times
