Pallade Veneta - Owen Wilson leaves tough action work to Alan Ritchson in 'Runner'

"I decided early on, like after a few days in the gym: 'We're not getting much results here'," he told AFP, recounting the first few days of preparation for "Runner."

"'I guess we're just going to have to play it as it lays, and leave that to Alan.' And I think that was the right decision," he laughed.

"Runner" stars Ritchson as brooding ex-Navy Seal Hank Malone, who buddies up with fast-talking medical courier Ben Bishop (Wilson) as he races against time to get a donated liver to an ailing Australian child.

Unfortunately, the matriarch of a fearsome criminal gang also needs a transplant and shares the same incredibly rare blood type, so she sends her volatile son (Rodrigo Santoro) and his henchmen to intercept it.

The result is a film that is part odd couple, part ticking-clock thriller and part road movie, all bound together with a heavy dose of action and a sprinkling of comedy that makes for an entertaining and undemanding hour and a half.

"Runner," helmed by director Scott Waugh ("The Expendables 4"), was originally written as a chase through rainy Los Angeles at night, though the team quickly realized famously sunny California might make some aspects of production tricky.

Producers considered London and Spain, but ruled them out because filming car chases -- including one scene in which Malone and Bishop's vehicle gets sliced in half -- would require more street closures than local authorities might allow.

They instead landed on Australia's east coast and the script was rewritten to make it a pursuit along the open roads and through the rural communities between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, with plenty of stops for fist fights, shootouts and explosions.

- 'Choreography' -

Wilson said as an actor and a movie buff, it was a thrill to see how the action sequences were put together.

"A little bit like Jackie Chan really would weigh in a lot on the action sequences, (Waugh) would include Alan a lot on how some of this choreography would look for the fight sequences," he said.

"That's the right word, because it is choreography; it's a bit like a dance.

"As somebody who loves movies, it's kind of interesting to see what goes into doing those scenes."

The movie's final high-octane car chase sees Malone (Ritchson) at the wheel of an ambulance with Bishop (Wilson) in the back, tearing towards the hospital where the sick little girl and her expectant mother are anxiously waiting.

Waugh said the chase had been a highlight of his directing career.

"I really wanted to try to transcend the car racing," he told AFP.

"I'm like, how can we take this sequence... and make this a new visceral ride that no one's ever experienced before?

"I feel like all the films in my career led up to being able to pull that one off," he said.

As for Wilson, he was all too happy to take a literal -- and metaphorical -- back seat in the bay of the ambulance as explosions went off around him.

"I was laying down," he said with a laugh.

"I'd ask: 'Am I going to be laying on a gurney? Do I have a sandbag to rest my head on while all this melee is happening around me?' And so those were sort of my big questions for the day."

"Runner" opens in US theaters on September 11.

A.Tucciarone--PV