Film - Runner Runner

Not worth Betting On

Film: Runner Runner

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck, Gemma Arterton

Directed by: Brad Furman

Duration: 1 hr 31 mins

Rating: * 1 / 2

 

Two words that would aptly describe this Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck starrer is dull and lacklustre. In fact it looked like a poor remake of the Mahesh Bhatt production starring Kunal Khemu, Blood Money which in turn was ‘inspired’ by host of other films.  

The biggest crime of any film is to subject the audience to boredom and Runner Runner is guilty of that. 

The basic premise is interesting but all hopes of an exciting film evaporate within ten minutes after it starts. Richie (Justin Timberlake) is a college student who is an expert at online gambling. But like many gamblers, he is broke and doesn’t have enough money to pay his college fees, after he loses all his playing poker on a website. 

He goes all the way to Puerto Rico to meet the owner of the website. Ivan Block (Ben Affleck) turns out to be the shrewd owner who also offers him a job. From being a wiz kid, Richie becomes more of a delivery agent and supervisor and suddenly he discovers that Ivan is into illegal dealings.  The glamor quotient is fulfilled by Gemma Arterton, who is Ivan’s girlfriend and partner in crime. 

Runner Runner is a shoddily written film. The characters are as convincing as onions being sold as Rs.2 a kilo. Even when there are situations where you think something interesting will happen, it takes the dullest possible route. It is surprising how they managed to rope in Affleck and Timberlake for this film. Maybe it was the pay check, it can’t be the story, that’s for sure.  

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