Runner Runner
Cert: 15 / 91 mins / Dir. Brad Furman
I wanted to like this. Really, I did. Timberlake and Arterton aren't going to change the world, but they're usually a good bet to turn up and read their lines, and I enjoy watching Affleck, even if I don't like some of the movies he's been in. But Runner Runner is like a celluloid anaesthetic, and they only make it worse, somehow. In different hands (and with a different cast), this could have bee a slick, tense thriller, yet Brad Furman's made a plodding, clockwork also-ran, filled with characters you don't care about, either way.
This was the main problem for me; I didn't hate Affleck's corrupt, double-crossing casino-lord, Ivan Block, and I didn't side with Timberlake's naive, greedy, smart-arsed maths genius, Richie Furst (and Arterton's one-note wonder, Rebecca, could have been played by anyone, she had so little to do). I didn't even form an opinion either way on Mackie's hard-nosed, rough-diamond, corner-cutting FBI agent, Shavers. I just spent an hour and a half not really giving a shit about them either way; I didn't have to as everything in the story is so linear that you don't need to wonder how it's going to end.
It never gets 'terrible', but Runner Runner is so dull it never even breaks into a jog. If you want to see a movie where a student gets into money problems with gambling to try and fund his tuition, 21 isn't too shabby (despite the RT score).
Not really; the trailer looks fairly interesting.
Not really.
Not really.
DVD, tops.
Not really.
Not really.
There isn't, no.
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