Not a lot of people have seen the movie, Runaway with Tom Selleck, but in my opinion, it’s a very under-rated and fantastic film. I love the high tech science fiction of the movie. It’s got some of the neatest gadgets I’ve ever see. Heat-seeking bullets that fly around buildings, remote control car bombs, and let’s not forget the robot spiders that kill by delivering a lethal dose of poison by syringe. The gadgets are all used by the bad guy, effectively and insanely performed by non-other than the lead singer of KISS himself, Gene Simmons. He’s so creepy in the film.  So much so that during filming, an assistant director came up to Gene Simmons during the location shoot and said that one of the off-duty Vancouver police doing crowd control had pointed at Simmons and said, “better get him outta there”. Upon being assured by the assistant director that he was one of the actors, the cop continued, “I don’t know . . . if I shook hands with him, I’d count all my fingers”.

Runaway was directed and written by Best-Selling Novelist, Micheal Crichton, and he does a great job at staying at the fore-front of technology and science. People don’t see him as a film director because of the success of his novels, but he’s actually a really good director. His films include Coma, Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, Looker and my favorite, The 13th Warrior (uncredited).

Tom Selleck does a great job as always, and I have to admit I’ve never seen him do a crappy job acting, he’s incredibly good and consistent. His partner and love interest is played by Cynthia Rhodes, and may not be familiar to you but can also be seen in the movies Dirty Dancing and Staying Alive. She was married to christian rocker Richard Marx for several years and they have children together. I think she could have gone on to do a lot more movies after this one if she didn’t decide to settle down, she’s very good, especially in the scene where Tom Selleck is removing a live explosive bullet from her arm.