RUNNER, RUNNER: UN'ESPLORAZIONE DEL MONDO DEL GIOCO D'AZZARDO SUL WEB CHE DALLE PAGINE DI DENNIS LEHANE ('MYSTIC RIVER', 'GONE BABY GONE', 'SHUTTER ISLAND') GUADAGNA IL GRANDE SCHERMO CON LA REGIA DI BRAD FURMAN 'THE LINCOLN LAWYER')
PREVIEW in ENGLISH by ANDREW BARKER (www.variety.com) - Dal 24 OTTOBRE
"La tecnologia ha creato un mondo in cui tutto accade molto velocemente, accelerando persino il concetto di sogno americano. Oggigiorno i giovani vogliono tutto subito, specialmente il denaro".
Il regista Brad Furman
(Runner, Runner; USA 2013; Thriller; 91'; Produz.: Appian Way/Double Feature Films/New Regency Pictures/Stone Village Pictures; Distribuz.: 20th Century Fox)
Soggetto: Ispirato all'omonimo romanzo di Dennis Lehane, giĂ autore Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone e Shutter Island.
Cast: Justin Timberlake (Richie Furst) Ben Affleck (Ivan Block) Gemma Arterton (Rebecca Shafran) Anthony Mackie (Agente Shavers) Michael Esper (Billy 'Pet' Petricoff) Oliver Cooper (Andrew Cronin) Christian George (Wilson) Yul Vazquez (Delegato Herrera) John Heard (Harry Furst) James Molina (Esteban) Louis Lombardi (Archie) Vincent Laresca (Sergente Barrancas) Sam Palladio (Shecky) David Costabile (Professor Hornstein) Ben Schwartz (Craig) Cast completo
Laurence Mason (Governatore) Dayo Okeniyi (Lionel) Diana Laura (Sandra Leon) Daniel Booko (Voce) Danielle Hartnett (Voce)
Musica: Chris Hajian
Costumi: Carlos Rosario
Scenografia: Charisse Cardenas
Fotografia: Mauro Fiore
Montaggio: Billy Fox
Effetti Speciali: Andy Clement
Makeup: Dominique Borrel
Casting: Ronna Kress
Scheda film aggiornata al:
29 Ottobre 2013
Sinossi:
IN BREVE:
Uno studente di Princeton, preso dall'ebrezza del poker on line, perde tutto il suo denaro. Il giovane finisce così nelle grinfie del corrotto boss del sito web.
IN DETTAGLIO:
Lo studente universitario Richie (Justin Timberlake), convinto di essere stato imbrogliato, parte per il Costa Rica per regolare i conti con il magnate del gioco d'azzardo Ivan Block (Ben Affleck). Ma Block lo seduce pospettandogli facili guadagni, e Richie è allettato dalle sue promesse fino a quando non apprende l'inquietante verità che riguarda il suo "benefattore". Quando l' FBI lo costringe a collaborare per scovare Block, Richie dovrà affrontare la sua partita più rischiosa e riuscire a manipolare i due opposti poteri che lo stanno accerchiando.
Richie insegue la nuova versione del sogno americano: una facile, immediata e illimitata ricchezza. Avendo perso tutto nel crollo del mercato di Wall Street, ha ricominciato daccapo, studiando freneticamente per ottenere una specializzazione. Dopo essere stato raggirato da un sito di scommesse online ed aver visto andare in fumo tutto il denaro destinato ai suoi studi, parte per il Costa Rica per sfidare il leggendario organizzatore di questa truffa: Ivan Block.
Block è colpito dalla destrezza di Richie e decide di prenderlo sotto la sua ala protettiva, con la promessa di insegnargli i trucchi del mestiere. Richie ha ora la possibilità di accedere ad un mondo in cui i suoi sogni diventano realtà , e si invaghisce della bella Rebecca Shafran (Gemma Arterton), la sofisticata socia in affari di Block . Presto però scopre che il magnate è ricercato per criminalità organizzata, estorsione e corruzione, e che un agente speciale dell'FBI di nome Shavers (Anthony Mackie) ha un solo scopo nella vita: assicurare Block e i suoi compari alla giustizia.Block decide di sparire dalla cirolazione e di usare Richie come capro espiatorio.
Con Shavers alle calcagna, Richie dovrĂ trovare il modo di giocare d'astuzia, anticipando sia le mosse di Shavers che quelle di Block per non rischiare di finire dietro le sbarre.
Commento critico (a cura di ANDREW BARKER, www.variety.com)
Whatever his shortcomings as a director, Brad Furman clearly has a knack for timely casting. 2011’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” was a watchable yet unremarkable courtroom drama elevated above its station by a lead turn from Matthew McConaughey just as his late-career resurgence was taking flight. Debut feature “The Take” boasted a key supporting part from recent Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale. And now with “Runner Runner,” Furman snags Justin Timberlake in an intermission between blockbuster album releases, and Ben Affleck between directing an Oscar-winning film and beginning his term at Wayne Manor. Yet despite his stacked deck of a cast, “Runner Runner” adds up to little more than a charmless, paint-by-numbers thriller unlikely to escape the forces of “Gravity” in its early October release.
Starring as a Princeton grad student of indeterminate age, Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a former Wall Street striver whose young career was derailed by the 2008 meltdown. Attempting
to pay tuition by hustling fellow students for an online poker company, Richie’s extracurriculars are quickly quashed by Princeton’s crusty old dean, which leaves the young man forced to wager his life’s savings on a round of digital Texas Hold ’Em to stay in school.
“I can’t let short-term variance slow me down,” Richie pledges in a representative example of the film’s stilted voiceover dialogue, yet despite his gambler’s-son credentials and immense mathematical intelligence (as we’re frequently told yet never shown), he’s taken for all he’s worth through circumstances that a buddy statistician tells him are about as probable as winning the lottery four times in a row.
Bearing evidence of this cheating, Richie heads off to Costa Rica to confront the poker company’s jet-setting CEO Ivan Block (Affleck), who’s been running his empire from abroad. As absurd coincidence would have it, Richie happens to arrive in San Jose on the same
weekend as a bacchanalian annual gambler’s convention, and he takes his case to the highest level. Impressed with Richie’s moxie, Block offers him a job.
Like “The Lincoln Lawyer,” “Runner Runner” displays a wealth of show-offy camera techniques that are never quite narratively necessary, but Furman does well to stage Richie’s giddy ascent into the upper echelons of the third-world nouveau riche, replete with stacks of cash, flashy cars, top-shelf liquor (though Richie prefers Bud Light, with whom Timberlake coincidentally has a sponsorship deal) and fancy dames, none fancier than Block’s main squeeze, Rebecca (Gemma Arterton).
Piece by piece, however, Richie begins to suspect his boss may not be an entirely legitimate businessman. His first clue comes when Block approvingly cites Meyer Lansky as an ethical exemplar. His second comes when he watches a cackling Block feed chicken carcasses to the pet crocodiles in his backyard. And all doubts would seem to
have been erased when an FBI agent (Anthony Mackie) accosts Richie to enlist his help in Block’s imminent criminal takedown. But the film still has nearly an hour left, so Richie dutifully heads back into his mentor’s questionable embrace.
The proscribed character arc here seems to be the slow process by which greed and accumulated compromises allow innocents to work their way deeper into the heart of corruption, but for all his supposed genius, Richie ultimately registers as a rather dim bulb, continually flailing at the obvious lifelines the script keeps throwing him. At long last he decides to strike back, yet his climactic master plan — teased for the last half-hour through mysterious meetings and payoffs — is forehead-slappingly elementary.
“It’s the gambling business in Costa Rica — occasionally you get punched in the face,” Block quips with shrugged shoulders after Richie has been savagely beaten on his account, in one
of several moments where Affleck threatens to make this whole film worthwhile. In spite of the mostly undeserved flack he gets for his acting chops, it’s hard to think of a better thesp than Affleck to play a deliciously despicable douchebag, and his performance here ranks alongside “Boiler Room” and “Mallrats” in that regard. At times one detects a certain eye-rolling impatience with the material as he races distractedly through a few of his master-of-the-universe monologues, yet that’s precisely what the character requires, and “Runner Runner’s” appeal increases dramatically whenever Affleck enters the frame.
As for Timberlake, he’s an entirely competent actor, yet his cinematic charisma seems best exploited by supporting parts at this point in his career, and he’s never totally believable as a babe-in-the-woods whizkid. It doesn’t help that he and Arterton have all the onscreen heat of a bowl of soggy cornflakes, and seem to be thrust together
for no reason other than the fact that they’re the two most attractive people in any particular room.
Puerto Rico ably stands in for Costa Rica throughout (considering every Costa Rican depicted here is either a prostitute or an authority figure accepting a bribe, it seems unlikely the country would have signed on), though cinematographer Mauro Fiore never quite renders the natural beauty of the surroundings as luminously as one would expect.
Bibliografia:
Nota: Si ringraziano 20th Century Fox e Orazio Bernardi (QuattroZeroQuattro)