Gal Gadot’s The Runner stumbles to career-low 9% on Rotten Tomatoes as critics pan convoluted thriller

There are movie duds, and boy, are there duds.

Gal Gadot's new Amazon Prime Video thriller The Runner has landed firmly in the second category, arriving with a low Rotten Tomatoes score.

The film, which dropped on Prime Video this week, follows Gadot as Maia, a high-flying London lawyer whose son is kidnapped while she is out for a jog. A mystery caller then forces her to keep running through the city, completing a series of tasks under threat. The premise blends elements of Phone Booth and Speed, but critics have questioned whether The Runner manages to capture the tension that made those earlier films work.

With close to a dozen reviews in, The Runner is sitting at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, currently the lowest score of Gadot’s acting career.

That comes despite Gadot having a fairly mixed track record with critics. Her filmography includes Heart of Stone (31%), Red Notice (36%) and Keeping Up with the Joneses (18%). The notable exception remains her 2017 solo outing Wonder Woman, which earned an impressive 93% and remains one of the most critically acclaimed entries connected to the DCEU.

Other projects, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Criminal and the original Fast & Furious, have received more divided responses.

There is also a pattern buried in the numbers: Gadot has generally fared better in ensemble projects, where she is part of a larger cast, than in films built primarily around her as the lead. The Runner and Heart of Stone, two of her recent solo action roles, now sit among her lowest-rated projects, with The Runner currently at the bottom.

So what has drawn such a strong response from critics? Much of the criticism has focused on the film’s plot, particularly its internal logic and the way its central premise develops.

A plot that has confused critics

Several reviewers have taken issue with the film’s approach to logic and technology. RogerEbert.com’s one-star review argues that the screenplay pays limited attention to how people and modern technology would realistically behave, describing the story as particularly convoluted. The review also suggests that some of these issues might have been easier to overlook if the film had delivered more consistently as a thriller.

Radio Times raised similar concerns, noting that Maia repeatedly appears to go against the kidnapper’s instructions without facing immediate consequences, before reaching an ending that the review felt weakened the film’s original setup.

Other reviews have been somewhat more forgiving while still pointing to moments where the story becomes difficult to follow, particularly as it approaches its finale and introduces additional twists.

The overall critical response suggests that viewers heading into The Runner may want to approach it primarily as a fast-paced thriller rather than a tightly constructed mystery. For Gadot, meanwhile, its current Rotten Tomatoes score makes it an unusually challenging entry in her filmography.