Review of Runner Runner – Out on Digital HD, Coming to Blu-Ray and DVD on Jan 7

A few times in life you get to be part of a deal that cannot lose. you have all the rights pieces. on paper this is what the mystery & suspense movie Runner Runner looked to be.

The 20th Century Fox feature has Ben Affleck playing the boss, Ivan Richie. The Princeton college student who pays for school with on-line gambling, is played by the triple treat (acting, signing and dancing) Justin Timberlake. Plus, there is Anthony Mackie as the FBI agent and Gemma Arterton as Rebecca Shafran, the girl both Ivan and Richie want.

On the other side of the camera, you have Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer, The Take) doing the directing, with a script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. If you are Hollywood backer you should be pulling out the checkbook now.

The story has a great nut of a plot. The super student Richie (Timberlake) is about to kicked out of school, due to his promoting of online poker on the Princeton campus and his lack of money to pay for his next school term. Plus, due his past worth, he has no hope of financial aid based on need. So he takes what he has left and plays online poker. He loses, or did he? No! He does some fancy math and can prove he was cheated. This is where Ivan Block (Ben Affleck) graces the screen. Richie with his data proving the gaming site swindled him flys down to Costa Rica to confront the on-line mastermind, Ivan. After meeting him, Ivan sees a kindred spirit in Richie and gives the younger man the option of joining his team.

After learning this in the backing pitch, I would be writing an even bigger check and be booking trips to the big film fests and award shows. Thank God, I am not a person who makes a living backing films. Sadly with all this talent and a great core of a plot, the movie goes snake eyes.

The movie has ton of great camera techniques and locations are eye candy. Plus the Digital HD print looks great and sounds great on your home theater.

Furman does well to stage Richie’s giddy ascent into the upper echelons of the third-world nouveau riche, while letting him still love Bud Light. (Timberlake has a deal with Bud Light in the real world). But lets the cast lose energy and focus in most of the last half of the film.

Where the movie should start picking up speed, it starts going south. After Richie gets put in the back of van by the FBI, Block cites Meyer Lansky as an ethical example to him; Richie begins to suspect his boss may not be an entirely legitimate businessman. Richie Furst with his great mathematical mind and the guts to go Central America and face Block, just goes dumb in the last hour of the movie. Furst is a gambler’s-son who lives in New Jersey, but he cannot see the true nature of Ivan Block until a hammer from a Bugs Bunny film falls on his head. In the end, Timerlake is never totally believable in the role.

Watching Affleck play a douchebag Gaming CEO at times that makes you think he wants an another Oscar. Then he grinds his gears and makes you think he in a student film playing the role in a cookie cutter manner far below his skill set. The appeal of the movie should raise anytime Affleck enters the frame. Sadly it only does so during the first half.

Sometimes the house doesn’t win, and neither does the player. In our case the house, 20th Century Fax only took in $19.3 Million at the box office. The audience, in the role as the player, get left knowing Runner Runner could and should have been a great silver screen ride. Instead we are left with a movie that just has us feeling blah at best or cheated at the worst. Now if you a film student or major film buff, this is a movie worth watching, it has lots of “do not do this” lessons to offer.

Rating 2.5