Runner Runner

I'm so disappointed. I had such high hopes for this movie. I love Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck is back and ready to prove himself, Gemme Arterton won my heart as Gretel in an awesomely bad movie, and Anthony Mackie has never done wrong. I loved the idea, too. A man using a computer formula that proved dirty gambling going to confront the man who took his money with physical evidence? That's awesome. I would have loved for this movie to be great.

But that being said, this is a perfect example of a misleading 8% Rotten Tomatoes score. Critics aren't necessarily bashing this movie. And I'm glad. Affleck in particular gives a strong, convincing performance, and I found Timberlake as likable as ever. Moreso, I didn't necessarily mind the script. I actually distinctly liked a few lines of dialogue that popped up as the film went on, lines that I'll remember at least for a while as great lines. And I'll absolutely defend the first half of the film as being pretty interesting. Sure, it wasn't great, but there was nothing so bad about it that I got angry.

No, Runner Runner had 3 major flaws for me, flaws that kept it from being the satisfying movie I desperately was hoping for. One was the music. There's far too much of it, and it's far too generic sounding. Party music in the film consisted of two chords and a lame keyboard beat. It sounded like someone pressed the demo button on a keyboard. For a movie that's trying to be real, that's pretty lazy. The second problem was it's pace. I was checking my watch every few minutes. That's pretty bad considering the movie clocked in at only 93 minutes. It felt like 3 hours. And for a movie with attempts of brutality and shock, mixed with some attempts at suspense, to feel so long is pretty bad. I saw the audience members around me clearly getting antsy as well, some of them actually walking out.

But no, the biggest problem was the ending. It was so thrown together, so predictable, and just silly. It was like the creators decided that no one would be interested after the first hour, so it was time to throw together a fast, stupid, hollywood perfect ending and hope for the best. That was the worst part. The first part of the movie had me checking my watch. The next half had me scratching my head from plotholes, lack of explanations, and forced drama. Story lines were left open ended, there was no sense of finality or even justice, and it had no sense of joy or passion to the ending at all. It felt so uncared for, like the writers literally had given up.

But that aside, I can't hate this movie. It's just such a great idea executed in such a mediocre way for the first half, followed by an atrocious second half. And again, with such likable cast and such a cool idea, I found it difficult to not feel joy at parts of it. But realistically, this movie isn't worth your money or time. If you really are interested, check it out when it hits netflix.

Rank - 1.5/5