Runner, Runner

And the eternal debate that I have had in my world continues – What is better? Ben Affleck the actor or Ben Affleck the director.  I must say that as of now, the latter is firmly entrenched as preferred option.  But with Runner, Runner, in what is probably his first negative role, he takes a small step towards scoring a few points with the former.

Although Ivan Block (Affleck) has much lesser screen time than he could have been given, Affleck does leave an impression that this negative thing may be just right up his alley.  There are moments that Affleck overshadows Timberlake albeit few of them. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Richie Furst (Timberlake) is an affiliate (business partner) for an offshore online gambling company. His role is to recruit as many people as he can into the habit.  Why is he doing it? Because he has worked a few years before Wall Street tanked and left him flat broke.  Because of his previous income statements, he cannot get a scholarship to Princeton despite having the brains for it.

Now there is a small glitch in this entire operation.  You cannot be promoting gambling on campus right? Also, when Furst loses all his money to an apparent software glitch, he takes the ballsy way out.  He travels to Costa Rica to confront Block and tell him about the glitch.  Block is impressed and offers him a multi-million dollar job.  Princeton obviously goes out of the window.

The good part about Runner, Runner is that it is an extremely fast paced movie.  And yet, it isn’t the most frenetic movie that you would have seen.  Brad Furman (Lincoln Lawyer) sets a good solid pace right upfront and continues with the same pace all through.  It felt really good when you look at your watch and find out that you are already an hour and 15 mins into the movie when you thought it was about 35-40 minutes.

But on most other counts, the story and narration is just about average.  Timberlake is good and I believe that he is a far better actor than a singer.  A good actor at that.  Gemma Arterton on the other hand can make no further progress than being good looking furniture and even there the freckles show.  There isn’t much of a supporting cast to speak about.

Overall, Runner, Runner, is a fun movie to watch but do you need to spend hard earned movie for the big screen.  I would guess not.  Watchable but wait for it to come onto Tata Sky or rent out a DVD or download or do whatever it is that you guys do.  6 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2239211801/?ref_=tt_ov_vi