Affleck and Timberlake on a yacht. |
Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake) has had a profitable career on Wall Street and because of that, he does not receive tuition at Princeton. He controls an online poker service where encourages college students to participate to receive more money. After the dean's threat to expel Furst for his activities, Furst himself participates in an online poker game and after things were going really well, he suddenly loses all his money to a cheater. Boy, no wonder he is pissed off? What does he do?
Furst travels to Costa Rica to confront Ivan Block (Ben Affleck), an "entrepreneur" who runs the biggest online poker game empire. After seeing the codes that was hacked into Furst's game, Ivan fires the people who cheated in that matchup. Ivan hires Furst to assist with the site work and he will pay millions of dollars.
Richie becomes romantically involved with Rebecca Shafran, Ivan's ex-lover (Gemma Arterton) and Ivan does not mind that. All of a sudden, Richie is kidnapped by FBI agent Agent Shavers (Anthony Mackie) and tells him that if he does not convict Ivan of various charges, then the agent will make his life a living hell. But, Shavers cannot do anything obstructive since he is under Costa Rica's jurisdiction. But, after this threat, the movie goes into a predictable route.
What a magnificent view! |
What is going with thrillers nowadays? Are all the writers throwing out their best? The first 30 minutes is really good delivering a good set-up of what is like to go through with a massive debt in college. The second half turns into a situation of what they have to do to double-cross Ivan. The climax just turns into a very predictable and lame punchline as to what happens to all these characters. The movie has a good solid set-up, but needed another run at the typewriter by really cleaning up the second half of the movie. What a shame!
**
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