Runner Runner, a title that may seem odd on the surface but it does have a meaning, is a fairly decent crime thriller that is a great way to spend the afternoon. The film isn’t entirely original nor will it leave people completely shocked over the twists, it does however play its cards mostly right and delivers a rather enjoyable film that takes place in the world of offshore gambling. The gambling within the film isn’t just in online gaming, but our main character takes many gambles in the hopes of them actually paying off. A metaphor – yes, an obvious one – yes, but the fact that it is there is pretty cool.
Struggling college student Richie (Justin Timberlake), needs more money in order to pay his tuition for his Masters. After getting in trouble for promoting gambling by trying to sign up students to online gambling sites, he decides to take a chance and win the money he needs using a popular gambling site. But he loses his money and he feels something isn’t right and after looking into it he sees that he was cheated. In order to get answers he decides to go to Costa Rico where the site works from and confront the online gambling mogul Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). Upon meeting the mogul, Richie gets a proposal to work for the man and the temptation of getting everything he’s ever wanted is too hard to pass up.
This film does have a lot going for it, the gambling aspect is interesting because these days it is big business. This website has in fact been asked many times to promote gambling sites (we have always said no). With the financial crisis still hitting people, the film takes this as a launching point for why the main character turns to where he does. He is living a huge gamble, going off to Costa Rica was a gamble, deciding to work for Block is a gamble and at first he really doesn’t question the world he’s been let in to. Which is interesting because until he was cheated he never really questioned anything with his own money gambling online. The gambling theme is there with Richie, as his father is a gambler, running small poker games in his older years as we see. So it does seem natural for him to take life gambles without really thinking them through. Or has he?
Watching the story unfold is actually a lot of fun, we the audience kind of know that Block isn’t someone you’d ever want to trust and one has to wonder why Richie seems to? Sure he’s very charming, and he seems to be a decent guy, but he doesn’t have a lot of money for being a stand up guy. Richie himself is a nice enough guy to follow and his own issues can easily reflect things we have been through or done. Then we have the love interest/can we trust her Rebecca (Gemma Arterton), who is mysterious enough to keep us interested, but isn’t used enough or developed enough. The FBI sub-plot isn’t really used enough, but its something that is expected and eventually plays a bigger part of the story. The themes of greed and corruption are looked at pretty well though, although the consequences should have been a bigger part.
Performance wise, there isn’t much to complain about here. Justin Timberlake continues to impress on the big screen. He certainly has great screen presence and charisma and he seemed very well suited to Richie. The innocence of a man getting in over his head was very much there, and while he struggled a bit with the scenes with Arterton, overall he was very solid. Ben Affleck does not usually play a villainous type, so this was against type for him, and it worked. He was did a very convincing job of playing the heartless Block, the charmer on the outside and the bastard on the inside. The man is rather versatile and he definitely had a great time with this role, he didn’t over do it either. Gemma Arterton was rather good, her role isn’t big and her character isn’t too developed but she did her job with pride and certainly made her presence known. Anthony Mackie as FBI Agent Shavers was great, as he always is. While he isn’t in this much, this served his talents much better than the dire Pain & Gain.
The film has a fairly decent script, it has a fast pace and doesn’t focus too much on character development but more for the story. Brad Furman has done a very cool job here, this is a fun film. While not as serious as his previous film The Lincoln Lawyer, he has shown he can do different genres successfully. Looking forward to what he does next, this was a pretty solid effort.
Rating:
The Super Network 