Runner, Runner (2013), R, 2 stars

Affleck and Timberlake on a yacht.

Hold on a minute! Haven't I seen this movie this year where a kid is in trouble and because of his talents he gets a job, but then, the scheme spirals out of control? Yeah, I think it was called Paranoia. That was an awful movie despite the two only good scenes from Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford going at each other. This one is not as awful because of two pretty good performances again and a very good set-up. But, the movie dwindles into a formulaic and lame third-act and conclusion.

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!

Let's start with the good news. Justin Timberlake has been a pretty good peak of his career with Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan, and The Social Network. He even delivered pretty good performances in bad movies such as In Time, Bad Teacher, and Trouble with the Curve. I thought he delivered a solid performance in this movie going through all the troubles in college and then deciding what to do as the right thing to free his life and have Ivan arrested. Affleck goes over the top, but he's fun in this movie as the predictable villain. Mackie does not do anything special and Arterton really has a thankless role.

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!

**