Friday 27 September 2013

"The Loneliness of The Long Distance Blade Runner Runner"

From Wiki, Wiki and Wiki:

In Los Angeles, November 2019, retired Princeton student Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) is detained by officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and brought to Ruxton Towers, a borstal (prison school) for delinquent youths.

Furst, whose job as a "Blade Runner" was to track down bioengineered beings known as "replicants" is cheated out of his tuition money by playing online poker. He seeks solace in long-distance running, attracting the notice of several replicants which have come to Earth illegally; as Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 models.

Long-distance running offers Furst a welcome distraction from the brutal drudgery of the school's corrupt owner, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck), but he is lured into becoming Ivan's protégé and right-hand man.

Furst watches a video of a Blade Runner named Holden (Morgan Paull) administering a "Voight-Kampff" test designed to help the school to win an important cross-country competition against an FBI agent, Zbysko (Harrison Ford), who tries to use Furst to bring Ivan down. The subject of the test, Leon (Brion James), shoots Holden after Holden asks about Leon's mother.

For Ruxton Towers to win the cross-country race would be a major PR boost for the establishment, and Furst has an obvious incentive to retire Leon and three other replicants - Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah).

Furst initially refuses, but after Zbysko ambiguously threatens him, Furst reluctantly agrees to trick Block into thinking he has escaped to Antigua, while in fact he's on Puerto Rico, part of the USA, and after speeding ahead of the other runners he deliberately stops running a few metres short of the finishing line.

2 comments:

Tim Almond said...

3 films? Very good indeed.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Ta, I thought I'd take it to the next level.