Runner Runner (2013) Reviews

• A One-Hour Justin Timberlake Music Video & 30 minutes of Ben Affleck Blinking Repeatedly

  GodofGSXR19772013-10-04

  Mindless entertainment, check. Justin Timberlake being Justin Timberlake, check. Ben Affleck being his same character from Boiler Room but with more blinking while delivering frat-boy douche lines, double check. Hot girl standing around being hot, Check. FBI agent way to young and random to be a believable yet cliché FBI agent, check. Justin Timberlake not nearly getting his ass kicked enough in this film, inexcusable but CHECK. 5/10 yall

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• Dry Predictable Gambling Caper

  3xHCCH2013-09-26

  Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake), a Princeton management graduate student who promotes an online gambling site on campus, earning commissions to pay off his tuition. When the school clamps down on his activities and he loses all his savings on a last ditch all-or-none bet, Furst goes straight to the top, flying to Costa Rica to seek out Ivan Block (Ben Affleck), the kingpin of online gaming. Block admires Furst's gambling acumen and hires him to be a trusted runner for his business affairs, which slowly reveal themselves to be less than on the level. When FBI agent Agent Zbysko (Anthony Mackie) enters the scene with his threats, Furst discovers he might have bitten off more than he could chew. Justin Timberlake generally does well as Furst, wide-eyed and excited at first, troubled and harassed at the end. I liked his scenes with his father played by John Heard. I do not really expect much from Ben Affleck as an actor, and again here, he does not measure up. He is hardly believable as a nefarious gambling lord who could feed his enemies to crocodiles. The beautiful Gemma Arterton is totally wasted here. She does not get to do much, and she does not have any chemistry with any of the men she is supposed to be in liaisons with. Anthony Mackie plays the FBI agent too over-the-top to be convincing. The story was too familiar to be exciting. The relationship of Justin and Ben (and Gemma, for that matter) were too dry to be engaging. The gambling jargon was too hard to follow to be interesting. The ending is too obvious to be worth the time spent watching.

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• So bland they had to name it twice!

  TheSquiss2013-10-02

  I was sorely tempted to write a single word review of Runner Runner: Pointless! But I'll resist and expand slightly. The trailer strongly suggests an intelligent, exciting thriller of crime and intrigue with A-list stars, action, drama, plenty of danger and a soupçon of violence. The realty of Runner Runner is somewhat blander. Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) is a Princeton student with moderate financial worries, who supports himself through online gambling. When he risks everything (except the price of his airline ticket to Costa Rica, clearly) on a game and loses, he discovers he has been swindled and heads south to confront the man behind the poker company and scam, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). Block is so impressed with Furst's balls that he offers him a job with eight-figure returns. With the chance to join the super rich, all the pleasures it encompasses and, predictably, a beautiful woman, Rebecca (Gemma Arterton), who equally predictably is Block's girlfriend, Furst's life couldn't be any better. Then FBI agent Shavers (Anthony Mackie) interferes. The ingredients are there but it just doesn't work. The characters are half-written shadows of people about whom we don't care. There is no depth, detail or intrigue to inspire us to invest our attention and, though we try to second guess the plot and look for the twists and double crosses lurking in the background, it transpires there are none to speak of and what we see is the sum total of it. Timberlake is on something of a downward trajectory after the superb The Social Network. Neither Bad Teacher nor Trouble with the Curve ignited and his turn in Runner Runner, though adequate, does nothing to persuade us he's an A-lister in Hollywoodland. Affleck, however, was ridding high with the supreme success of Argo and the promise of more box office clout with the forthcoming Gone Girl and Batman vs. Superman. Runner Runner isn't going to damage his career but it certainly isn't going to boost it. Meanwhile, there are times when Gemma Arterton frequently forgets to act (and can't pronounce Antigua) and Mackie is lumbered with a role that diminishes even the 'heights' of Pain and Gain. Somebody really needs to shake director Brad Furman, turn him around and point him in the direction of a sequel to his fine The Lincoln Lawyer. Runner Runner isn't a bad film. It's just a bland, boring, forgettable, dull thud with no echo. For more reviews from The Squiss, subscribe to my blog and like the Facebook page.

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• Runner Run away from this film

  Jimmy_Ray2013-10-25

  The 3*s I'm giving Runner Runner are for the location and the concept, this could have been a really great film but is completely let down by a incomplete script, poor direction, cinematography and wooden acting. The Opening 10-15 minutes of the film should have been Timberlake's character back story leading to the point where we actually open. There is absolutely no chemistry between Timberlake and Arterton, Affleck proves once again how he's able to be out-acted by the most inanimate object on screen, and I saw the film less than an hour ago and have already forgotten everything the FBI agent did. Due to the poor script you have a total lack of empathy for anyone, you actually don't really care if they live, die, go to prison or get away. My biggest concern was if it actually was Deadmau5 DJing at the Doctor Parnassus themed party or just some dude in a similar hat. Also, the jargon used throughout the film means absolutely nothing to anyone with out a financial and IT background. If you want to watch a good film about someone trying to pay for their university education watch 21!

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• Affleck saves an otherwise completely forgettable film

  limoncella-641-422352013-09-27

  You know it's a good sign when the title has nothing to do with the movie. Here's a film that begins one way but winds up being something else entirely. Justin Timberlake plays a Princeton student paying his way through tuition costs by playing online poker, one day he loses big and finds out later he was cheated. He then heads out to Costa Rica to confront the owner of the website (Ben Affleck), but soon winds up in his employ. When the movie begins it plays out very much like The Social Network, everyone is talking fast, there's a thumping electronic score and there's lots of impossible to follow jargon being tossed around. But once we get to Costa Rica it turns into one of those crime movies where you have the good intentioned innocent guy being pulled into the underbelly by the charming criminal. The movie is boring, deathly boring. The whole time you find yourself listening to bland, completely uninspired dialogue that exists only to get straight to the point to keep the movie flowing. With one of the most banal generic plots you could possibly fathom. You find yourself as a viewer one step ahead of all the characters in the film because it's a movie that's been made a million times before, there is not a single unique surprise in the entire thing. The entire film trundles along with scene after scene of boring lazy dialogue, obvious foreshadowing and almost no action scenes. Plus the film just looks cheap, characters who live in these huge extravagant, completely senseless homes will walk into some dingy room to talk for ten minutes. The direction and photography is completely dead, there is not a single creative flair to heighten the feel of the picture. Justin Timberlake was excellent in The Social Network, but he hasn't shined in anything since. He's not bad in this movie, but it's not a performance that could pass as anything better than serviceable. Gemma Arterton does absolutely nothing but stand around looking pretty, plus she and Timberlake has absolutely no chemistry making the romance between them feel completely awkward. Anthony Mackie is completely wasted in this, he may have the only funny moments in the movie, but his scenes are completely perfunctory. But God-bless Ben Affleck, who seems to know what a miserable pile of dreck he's in, and seems to be the only one having any fun. It's a performance that's so completely beneath him and he's definitely phoning it in, but his character is so deliciously wicked that it's hard not to love him and every scene he's in completely energises the movie. I can't exactly explain what happened but at some point in the third act the character became some kind of super villain that you would only see in the craziest James Bond movies. Save for Affleck (and a weird cameo by Deadmau5), it's just an incredibly generic and forgettable affair that isn't even worth watching at home, this is the kind of movie that's best left forgotten. Also it's pronounced AN-TEE-GAH not AN-TI-GUAR.

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