“Runner Runner” a Loser Loser

“Loser Loser”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Runner Runner stars Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck in a movie about offshore gambling, and it brings to mind an eternal truth about gambling: “The house always wins.”

In this case the house is the movie theater, and the loser is you.

Timberlake plays Richie Furst, who is earning his masters degree in finance at Princeton and is also a teaching assistant, but he spends a lot of his time playing online poker, which causes him to be called into the dean’s office for a meeting.

The dean tells Richie that he has his hands in his fellow students’ pants, he is an affiliate for online gaming, and then says, “You will close up shop immediately.”

Like all gambling suckers, Richie doesn’t listen to reason, he plays online poker again on a popular Website, bets everything he has, and loses it.

However, Richie’s two buddies and colleagues use statistics to convince him that the Website cheated him, and so Richie travels to Costa Rica, where the Website is located, to confront the owner of the Website.

Affleck plays Ivan Block, the owner of the gambling Website, and after Richie learns that Block is like The Wizard of Oz and nobody gets close to him, Richie manages to get an invitation to meet Ivan on Ivan’s boat.

Ivan tells Richie that he thinks Richie is exceptional, and Ivan offers Richie a job working for him.

After Richie proves himself to Ivan, Richie now believes that he has almost everything he wanted, and he invites his two buddies from Princeton to come down to Costa Rica and work with him.

However, Ivan confesses that he hates his business and that it is not fun anymore, even though it allows Ivan to do whatever he wants. There are payoffs and bribes to local officials that are necessary for him to run his business, and it is also very dangerous.

Yes, Richie gets beaten up a couple of times doing his job for Ivan, who even knew it would happen.

Ivan tells Richie that everybody has something worth more to them than money, and in Richie’s case it is his father.

You know how some movies seem to have been made just because of the exotic location? This is one of those movies.

Runner Runner is nothing more than a loser loser.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”