Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: “Runner,” a new Alan Ritchson action-comedy now playing in theatres, sees a “runner” of exotic goods become the target of a brutal cartel leader.

CAST: Alan Ritchson, Owen Wilson, Rodrigo Santoro, Leila George, Adriana Barraza, Sullivan Stapleton, Peta Sergeant, and Geraldine Hakewill. DIrected by Scott Waugh.

REVIEW: A straight-ahead ticking clock action thriller, “Runner” is at its best when it trusts its charismatic stars, and not the stunts, to carry the show.

Alan Ritchson plays Jack Reacher… er, Hank Malone, a former Navy Seal now attempting to live a quiet life in Australia. Newly sober, he works for a delivery service that specializes in transporting unusual items. “I don’t hurt people anymore,” he says, delivering a line that, given the context, assures us that his days as a bruiser are long from over.

His latest delivery comes fraught with problems. Charged with delivering a human liver to a dying seven-year-old, he has three hours to get the “medical package” to the hospital or the patient will die. “There’s nothing in the world that’s going to keep us from getting to you,” Hank tells the girl’s concerned mother (Leila George).

Getting in the way of the promise is a chatty medical courier named Ben (Owen Wilson) and cartel members who want the liver for their own use. Determined to complete the delivery Hank leans into his old Navy Seal training. “I’m not a man that people successfully [mess] with,” he says.

A throwback to the buddy action comedies of the 1980s and 90s, “Runner” pairs the muscle-bound Ritchson with Wilson’s comedic chops, which are as well developed as Ritchson’s impressive abs. They’re a compelling pair, sharing barbs and bullets in equal measure.

Former stunt-performer-turned-director Scott Waugh comes up with several new ways to smash up Land Rovers and stages several “Reacher-esque” knock-down-drag-out fight sequences that showcase Ritchson’s way with a fist to the face. They dispatch dozens of cartel members. Possibly hundreds of them in fairly spectacular ways, but the villains, including the ruthless Damian Zaldívar (Rodrigo Santoro), are so nondescript and thinly written it’s hard top care when they go. They may as well be wearing the “Star Trek” red shirt, a sure-fire sign they aren’t going to make it to the next scene.

“Runner” doesn’t try and reinvent the buddy action movie. Formulaic, although it must be said there is at least one big shock you may not see coming, it plays like an homage to the buddy action genre with some amped-up action. Still, as violently visceral as those scenes are, the film is at its best when Ritchson and Wilson throwing puns, not punches.