The distributing studios may sweat over the fact that MGM’s “Runner” showed up on streaming just as Angel Studios’ “The Runner” was trotting into theaters.

One stars Gal Gadot as a lawyer/mother sprinting across London to murder a prosecution witness to save her kidnapped child. The other features Alan Ritchson as a delivery driver with “special skills” which he calls on to kill his way through bad guys in Brisbane, Australia to get a valuable organ donation to a dying little girl.

Both films are quite violent, and have mobsters/kidnappers making others do a lot of their dirty work for them, hurling threats and instructions by trackable cell phones. So you could see why Angel Studios might be peeved that MGM stole their thunder in streaming their title last week.

For viewers, it’s pretty much a wash. Both stumble and disappoint more often than they thrill.

Gadot’s thriller has pace but little sense of the “ticking clock” that builds suspense, and she’s a bit of a stiff when it comes to showing empathy or fear for an endangered child, or building empathy with the audience.

Hulking Ritchson, star of TV’s “Jack Reacher,” is the sort of screen hero who hits people and bones break, spinal cords fold up and organs are rearranged. He’s a prettier Dave Bautisa, a humorless John Cena. But when he says he means business, we take it seriously.

“I’m not a man people mess with successfully.”

We see plenty of evidence of that in this flippant “buddy picture” whose bloody body count smothers any sense that it’s an “action comedy.”

Owen Wilson plays Ben, an organ donation courier who flies into Brisbane with a liver for a little girl further up “The Gold Coast.” Ritchson is Hank, who is A) the driver/deliverer/errand boy who normally picks up packages, say a rare Golden Conure parrot (I think) exchanged in a divorce settlement, or even an absentee politician on a bender who is needed for a vote, B) an ex-Navy SEAL, C) a recovering alcoholic who just collected his “one year sober” chip and D) irked as hell that his latest package is a passenger with a liver in a secure refrigerated case ready for transplant.

Chatterbox Ben shows up, climbs into dude’s Outback-ready 4-Runner, and will not shut up.

“I think I’m gonna win you over,” Ben chirps in his most cheerful Wilsonese.

That seems unlikely even before the black Land Rovers start chasing them through the streets, along the waterfront, with bullets flying, cars and trucks and buses crashing and the carnage and collateral damage piling up.

This “cartel” fellow, named Damien, of course (Rodrigo Santoro of “Westworld”), covets the liver. He shoots strangers in traffic and subordinates who disappoint him and he curses and threatens our mismatched heroes in English and Portugeuse.

“Don’t make me kill any more innocent people today!”

Fat chance of that, what with the coppers yelling “Drop your weapon!” before drawing their own and a steady supply of henchmen who fail to waylay that incredibly-rare bloodtype liver and the beefcake protecting it.

The script, by two unproven novices, lurches from ludicrous to laughable with rarely a surprise thrown in along the way. The direction leans into a chemistry that never comes close to clicking between our two leads, Mr. Talks-a-Lot and “brooding, drives fast punchy guy.”

But damn, the ways they have Ritchson dispatch bad dudes are creative. And for a film distributor that keeps things on the family side of “faith based” or something akin to that, this movie’s disregard for life is something of a shock.

How many shootings, stabbings and beatings-to-death do we witness? I lost count in the 30s.

The climax has every mano-a-mano brawl cliche in the history of the genre, including that knife that comes out for a “tchik tchik tchik tchik” stabbing sprre and that inevitable moment when the writers and their characters realize that the setting of this fight sometimes has a fire axe under glass.

Ritchson has instant credibility as a man of violence who swears “I don’t hurt people any more,” and doesn’t embarass himself as an ex-husband/grieving dad, either.

But as a foil for Wilson, riding two dudes on a beach bike to deliver a refrigerated liver, the light touch isn’t there, not from director Scott Waugh (The Jackie Chan/John Cena “buddy” thriller “Hidden Strike” was his), and not from Ritchson either.

And for those keeping movies-with-the-same-title score at home, that eye-rolling finale and its attempt-at-pathos epilogue makes this the lesser of two “Runners.” That’s got to be a relief to Gal Gadot, anyway.

Rating: PG-13, graphic violence, some profanity

Cast: Alan Ritchson, Owen Wilson, Leila George, Peta Sargeant and Rodrigo Santoro.

Credits: Directed by Scott Waugh, scripted by Miles Hubley and Tommy White. An Angel Studios release.

Running time: 1:37