Runner Runner
Starring: Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck, Gemma Arterton
Director: Brad Furman
Rating: 2.5/5
Brad Furman is a director who is no stranger to the crime/thriller genre having delivered The Lincoln Lawyer. Now he is back with his new film Runner Runner.
While the movie does have a loaded cast the story is one that we have seen so many times before that it does little to inspire.
Richie (Justin Timberlake), a Princeton college student who pays for school with online gambling, bottoms out and travels to Costa Rica to confront the mastermind, Ivan (Ben Affleck), whom he believes has swindled him.
Ivan sees a kindred spirit in Richie and brings the younger man into his operation. When Richie comes to fully understand the deviousness of his new boss, he tries to turn the tables on him.
This is a story that does have real potential but instead of being an edge of your seat thriller it is all just a little bit too predictable.
The main problem here is we have a hunch of characters that you just don’t care about; instead of character development the script just goes for cheap thrills and gambling gags and metaphors.
Justin Timberlake has certainly developed as an actor since he made his big screen debut, but he just hasn’t been given anything to get his teeth into.
Moreover Ricky Furst is a character who knows exactly what he is doing and makes some morally dubious decisions along the way.
You can’t really feel too sorry for him when the shit hits the fan: you know something has gone wrong with a film when you don’t care if the main character lives or dies.
I am a big fan of Ben Affleck and it is just a shame that he was given a character that is merely only a shadow of a villain.
He is charming, intelligent and rather suave, which is how he wins people over, and yet there is no real menace to him.
Of course you can’t play a villain too over the top as he becomes more of a caricature, but there really is nothing to Ivan Block that would have you worried for the safety of the central character.
Gemma Arterton is drastically under used and is nothing more that a bit of skirt to look pretty which is a major shame as the British actress is a great talent.
But the major problem with this movie is that is feels thrown together - it really is more like a collection of scenes rather than a well written story.
There is no doubt that the story is weak; there are some engaging moments but they just don’t come around all that often. And when the final act gets underway you know how it is all going to turn out.
While there are some good moments in the film they are really overshadowed by all that is not so great about this movie.
Runner Runner was a story with some real potential while the characters could have been really fascinating if a bit more time had been invested in them.
Sadly Runner Runner does fall short and offers us nothing that we haven’t seen before in this genre of movie.
Runner Runner is out now.
