For a film that runs a mere 90 minutes, Brad Furman's Runner Runner sure feels like it takes an eternity to tell what audiences will find is a pretty predictable story.
Written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders, Oceans 13), the film introduces the world of online gambling and all of the corruption and deviant behaviour that seemingly goes with it. Unfortunately, although the film is clearly trying to capture the cool behind-the-scenes excess that made films like Casino so intriguing, it ends up feeling about as complicated and exciting as a game of Go Fish.
Justin Timberlake is woefully miscast as a former Wall St. whiz kid named Richie who's now using the last of his savings on a Princeton education. In order to try and make his money stretch farther, he bets his final $17,000 on an online poker site owned by Ivan Block (Ben Affleck, perhaps laying the brow-furrowing groundwork for his upcoming turn as Bruce Wayne) and loses it all. After some digging, Richie figures out that he was cheated and hightails it to Costa Rica where Mr. Block is living the high life in exile.
After confronting Block about the cheat, Richie is invited to join the team as a sort of pit boss, smooth talker, suit wearer and all around big bucks gopher. Not surprisingly, Richie soon learns that maybe the job isn't all Block presents it to be and when he's collared by the FBI (the charming Anthony Mackie, not given enough to do with the role), he's forced to put those Ivy League smarts to good use in order to extricate himself and outsmart a man who's way too slippery to get himself caught.
The main issue with Runner Runner isn't that it feels like a story we've seen a million times before, or that we're asked to care about characters that feel like animated cardboard cutouts of better written characters from far better movies. Those things are problems to be sure, but they pale in comparison to just how dull the film makes the strange world of internet gambling seem. We learn absolutely nothing about a world that has enough devotees to make Block a very, very rich man, nor does it try very hard to explain all of the dirty dealings that allow him to live like Bond villain just out of the reach of the FBI and local officials. Sure Richie comes in contact with a few shady types and a couple guys get dangerously close to some pet crocodiles but we're never truly taken inside the world. Just a few fun insider tidbits would have gone a long way in making up for a film that's rote, transparent and fails to provide a single twist which seems especially odd for a movie about online poker, you'd think the filmmakers would go out of their way to try and bluff or surprise the audience.
No such luck.
Runner Runner opens on October 4, 2013.
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