"Runner Runner": So So At Best, Blah At Worst

 

You'd think a movie about high stakes internet gambling and betrayal with "Runner, Runner" as its title would be an edge of your seat experience with never ending tension. Sadly that is not the case with this 2013 piece. It stars Justin Timberlake as young, naïve Princeton grad student Richie Furst who, in a dumb beyond words move, loses all his money on an online poker game. But Richie knows that it was rigged and decides to fly down to Costa Rica to confront the company's owner, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). Block takes a liking to the kid and before he knows it, Richie is earning a seven figure salary as one of Block's lieutenants.

 But Richie soon learns that Ivan is stealing money from the customers, laundering it, and plans on pinning everything on poor dumb Richie. It all sounds like an exciting film but the tension just isn't there. Rather the movie just feels bland most of the way through. One reason for this could be that we don't really feel any connections to the characters, not even Richie despite him providing a little bit of narration hear and there, and so we don't really care all that much if what happens to them.
In fact, most of the other characters aren't really memorable at all. For example, Richie ends up falling in love with one of Ivan's girls (sexy Gemma Arterton) but it doesn't really feel like it adds it much to the story.

 Director Brad Furman does a terrible job at setting up any kind of exciting atmosphere since there is none to be had. As far as the acting goes, Justin Timberlake is okay but he definitely doesn't shine in the role. In other words, mediocre at best. Ben Affleck is a little bit better in the role of Ivan since he establishes a little bit of a sense of danger for the character but he still could have been better. Anthony Mackie is okay at playing the stereotypical no nonsense FBI agent Shavers but even he can't add much excitement to the film. The subject matter of the story might be a bit amusing at times since it concerns international internet gambling and the shooting locations are beautiful, as are many of the girls. But in the end, "Runner, Runner" is just one of those films that seems to have been made on autopilot; everything is subdued and sedated. That's unfortunate because in the right hands it could have been a different story. In the end, if you want to see a really good tension-filled picture about gambling, watch "Casino". It might be the old school version of gambling, but sometimes old school is better.