Reviewed: Runner-Runner

To the outside world Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake)  looks like he's on the fast-track - a promising career in finance lays before him if he can just finish his prestigious university course. But he's running low on funds and to make ends meet is promoting online gaming, taking a slice and commission from every 'sale'. He's an honourable guy and plays fair, even if he knows he's sometimes taking advantage of others' failings. However with the threat of being thrown out for his 'illegal betting', Furst goes all-in with what is left of his finances, playing poker online and using all his acumen to come out ahead.

Instead he loses almost everything, but his alarm bells start ringing. Even taking bad luck into account, there seems something fishy about the scale of his loss and a colleague confirms his suspicions that the website cheated him. The site is one of many sites operated by gambling tycoon Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). Furst could go to the authorities, but instead decides to go to the source with his proof. He works out a way to get Block's attention - planning only to get what he's owed back and alert the tycoon about the fraud.  He manages to wangle his way into a party in Costa Rica and tell Block about the problems on the site and Block, to his credit, seems concerned that someone might be trading off his good name. Impressed with Furst's understanding of gaming and tenacity, he offers him a job in his empire. Money. Women. Success. It's a hard offer to refuse. But then Furst is confronted by an FBI agent determined to expose Block as a criminal and has to decide where his loyalties lie. It soon becomes clear that everyone has an agenda and an ace up their sleeve, but who's going down by the time that last hand is played out..?

Perhaps the main problem with Runner Runner is that there are no real surprises here. Affleck's Block turning out to be a ruthless bad guy is expected from his first scene; Timberlake's Furst being set up to take the fall and trying to play his boss and the FBI at their own game is the whole story we know is coming. But there's no real panache here, no 'oh, that was clever' moments. Everybody has such an assigned role they might as well be wearing nametags and job description, despite almost all the secondary characters being faceless accessories to the main plot.  Equally, Timberlake's plan to get out before the (metaphorical, but appropriate) house of playing cards comes crashing down on his head isn't really anything special, with the climax seemingly unlikely in its execution rather than inspired.  Leverage did it better on a weekly basis. 

That's not to say it's a 'bad' film. This is a decent enough tale, told perfectly inoffensively and with a solid enough cast throughout its eighty-five-minutes-and-out running time. But it's a lightweight outing built out of an idea that never really has any meat on the bone and suited more for this disposable DVD market than it was for the big-bucks big-screen. Despite its notable ensemble, it's easy to see why Runner Runner didn't really pick up the pace at the multiplex.  Gemma Arterton and Anthony Mackie have paper-then supporting roles, she as the permatanned trophy girlfriend who supposedly has an important part to play in Block's empire (but acts like more of a hostess) and he as the frustrated FBI agent who makes claims of being all 'mavericky' but goes by a familiar playbook of threats).

Brad Furman previously directed The Lincoln Lawyer, a decent adaptation of the Michael Connelly novel and that was an infinitely better thriller, so one wonders if it's the material here rather than the cinematography and angles that makes it feel so journeyman.

All in all, this feels like a film that could have been made at least a decade ago - and probably was under a raft of different names.  Runner Runner wants to be a thriller about the big gamble, about 'knowing when to walk away and when to run...' but the risks and stakes are simply never high enough to feel like it's going all-in with its remit and instead we simply get what feels like a passable morality-tale movie-of-the-week that pays lip-service to its exposé of the gaming world and merely lucked out with its casting and budget...

Runner Runner (15) is released today  by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment