Runner Runner

With the rightful kudos that Ben Affleck is receiving these days for reinventing himself as one of the most promising young directors around its a shame to see him continue to sully his name in such medicore fare as Runner Runner. Up front though this looks like this could have been fun, telling the story of college student Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) who discovers via some statistical analysis (hey, no sleeping at the back) that the poker website he lost money on is a scam and debunks to Costa Rica (as you do) to confront the improbably named Ivan Block (Affleck), the owner of said website. Block takes Furst under his wing and soon enough things turn into a game of bent bets and bent coppers. It sounds fun, but its mainly bland. Timberlake and Affleck both look bored throughout and when the script throws up moral dilemma's or tight situations you just don't care how things are going to turn out. What's most surprising about the whole production is that this is director Brad Furman's follow up film to his excellent The Lincoln Lawyer, a film which also had a twisty plot and made good work of making morally ambiguous characters likeable. Lightning doesn't strike twice here though, mainly due to a lack of depth and detail summed up by Gemma Arterton's painfully thin character who is no more than token totty for the lads. Oddly enough the conclusion is actually pretty clever, but this only again highlights how bare the previous ninety minutes have been. Runner Runner, so good they named it twice (guffaw guffaw). Rating: 4/10.