Timberlake does alright work as the naive and power hungry young hustler with a conscience, but he seems too old for the role (something the film very awkwardly tries to explain away by saying he actually worked on Wall Street for a time before going to university). No one ever has to tax themselves beyond their obvious archetypes, giving the whole endeavour a mechanical, almost robotic feeling of people simply going through the motions. It’s Calvin Ayre aped villain might have gone over better a few years ago when his skeezy notoriety was still front and centre in the news, but now it feels like a restating of the obvious: that online gambling is inherently shady and run predominantly off-shore for good reasons.Īnd that’s really all director Brad Furman ( The Lincoln Lawyer) and his cast have to work with. Whereas that film still works as a timeless look at gambling culture, this film looks and acts like it came about three or four years late to the online poker party. Then it turned out that Runner Runner is actually written by the same people who came up with Rounders – Brian Koppelman and David Levien – and that joke stopped being funny. ![]() There was a joke going around heading into Runner Runner that some people would have preferred a sequel to Rounders. ![]() Impressed by his ability to take matters into his own hands, Ivan hires Richie on as one of his morally ambiguous sales reps, but all too late Richie – initially seduced by big money and good times – gets in over his head, pursued by the FBI and the only local officials not in Block’s pocket and being played like a pawn for Ivan’s selfish endgame. Pissed off and looking to get his money back on his own terms, Richie heads on down to the non-extradition paradise of Costa Rica to confront Midnight Black owner and general sleazeball Ivan Block (Ben Affleck) about the cheat instead of blasting him on the internet. In a bid to pay off his student debt, Princeton poker whiz Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) has just lost his entire savings playing online Texas Hold ‘Em, but he knows he’s been cheated by someone within the site who could see his cards. It’s not even really that interesting of a misstep for anyone involved, but rather something so clichéd and bland that it will leave most viewers with a raised eyebrow of incredulity and a facial expression that just says “Really? That was it?” It’s the kind of film that seems almost designed to be watched on airplanes rather than in cinemas. ![]() Sometimes it’s easy to see why talented people flock to lesser material, but there isn’t even a shred of a clue why anyone involved with the tepid potboiler Runner Runner would set everything else aside in their schedules to do it.
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