Gal Gadot is trading in her lasso for a very particular set of skills, or at least that's how it looks from here. Her new action thriller The Runner arrives on Prime Video on September 2, and if the premise sounds familiar, well, it should. A mother races against the clock to save her child, punching, chasing, and outsmarting her way through whatever stands in her path. If you're hearing echoes of a certain Liam Neeson franchise from 2008, you're not alone. Collider has the full rundown on the release.

Let me tell you, I've watched this cycle play out before. Every few years Hollywood decides the aging action hero is over and then someone comes along and proves the formula still works. Neeson did it with Taken when he was in his mid-fifties, and now Gadot is doing the mom version of it, which frankly feels overdue. Mothers have been saving the day in real life since the beginning of time; the movies are just now catching up.

The setup, from what's been revealed so far, keeps things lean. A child in danger, a parent with a very particular motivation, and a countdown. No sprawling universe, no required homework before you press play. And I appreciate that, the same way I appreciate an app that opens and just works. You don't need a fan wiki and three prequels to enjoy an evening's entertainment. Sometimes a thriller should be a thriller.

My granddaughter Jess covers entertainment for us here, and she and I have a running debate about whether the streaming catalog has gotten too crowded. She says yes. I say the catalog was always crowded, we just used to have to drive to the video store and hope the tape was in. One copy, one rewind fee, one disappointed Friday night. September 2 landing on a Wednesday means you've got a built-in weekend watch, and this one pairs nicely with popcorn and zero expectations of high art.

Now, will it be good? That's always the question, isn't it. Gadot has the physical presence for this, anyone who saw her in the Fast movies knows she can throw a convincing punch. The wildcard is always the script. Taken worked because it was tighter than a drum and Neeson sold every line of that famous phone speech. The imitators that followed mostly fizzled because they copied the grit without the craft. Whether The Runner falls on the right side of that line, we'll know soon enough.

Prime Video is betting big on Gadot generally, and this fits their pattern of star-driven action that you can watch from your couch without thinking too hard. There's a version of that which feels cynical, and a version that feels like comfort food. I'm choosing to expect the comfort food version, with at least one chase sequence that makes me put down my knitting.

So mark your calendar for September 2. And if you've never seen the original Taken, do yourself a favor and watch it first, because watching the genre get remade is more fun when you remember where it came from. I'll be watching The Runner that weekend myself, and I'll let you know if Gadot takes the crown or just borrows it for an evening.