“Bloodlust is our birthright!” bellows the host of the titular, ultra-violent gameshow in Edgar Wright’s The Running Man. It’s one of many blunt proclamations that punctuate the film’s brash satire of fascism, propaganda, class struggle, and consumer culture — buzzwords that ricochet through moments so thematically unsubtle and emotionally manipulative they risk rendering the spectacle hollow.

What the film lacks in finesse, it makes up for in unvarnished grandeur. Wright crafts something so pulpy, vulgar, and high on its own supply that it joyfully harkens back to a bygone blockbuster era — one less concerned with slick polish and more enamoured with rough, scrappy pleasures. With its exaggerated personas and proudly nonsensical plot, The Running Man feels like a high-concept, in-your-face adult actioner lost to time, arriving as a rebuttal to today’s focus-tested, risk-averse crowd-pleasers.

Adapted from Stephen King’s novel (with nods to the 1987 Schwarzenegger film), The Running Man takes place in a dystopian America ravaged by income inequality and numbed by endless bread-and-circuses entertainment. Its crown jewel is the eponymous game show, where contestants must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins for a life-changing cash prize.

Glen Powell, indelibly charismatic, plays a man on his last rope: defiant, soft-hearted, and barred from the kind of employment that would secure real medical care for his sick infant. Backed into a corner, he auditions for The Running Man, where ruthless showrunner Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) pegs his simmering anger as ratings gold. Soon, he’s fighting not only for his family’s survival but to bring down the men pulling the strings.

Wright’s trademark touch yields a cavalcade of visual gags and tactile worldbuilding. For all its unruliness, The Running Man remains too stylish, too savvy, and too immersive to dismiss. The film gleefully winks at its audience through propaganda cutaways, while its striking settings and nimble action choreography keep the chaos captivating.

It’s unfortunate, then, that The Running Man never fully weaponizes its topicality. The commentary routinely pulls its punches — always seconds away from delivering an incendiary blow that never comes. For all its throwback pleasures, Wright’s film hesitates to embrace the acerbic, confrontational spirit of its clear influences.

Still, even if The Running Man unfolds like a softer, less subversive Paul Verhoeven flick, it endures as a reminder of the rougher, rowdier, raunchier joys that used to define the blockbuster landscape.

The Running Man is in theatres now.