‘Runner, Runner’ May Have You Running Out of Theatre Before Film Ends

As first reported by Gambling911.com last week, initial reviews for the online gambling themed film “Runner, Runner” were not especially good.  The film continues to be widely panned by critics.

“’Runner, Runner’ Stumbles, Stumbles” reads the headline from the Orange County Register. 

Michael Sragow of the Register writes:

With a lot of clever rejiggering, this flaccid gambling/caper film could have been a TV pilot that had you asking “what comes next?” instead of a feature that leaves you grumbling, “That’s all there is?”

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Ali Gray of the UK review site TheShiznit.co.uk offered up a good analogy:

In poker terms, Runner Runner is the player who wins an average stack of chips, bets moderately, cashes out even and leaves before the game gets interesting.

Runner Runner is a movie that looks quite nice, hums along at a fair old clip and doesn't stumble over any idiotic plot points or feature any particularly bad performances. It is also one of the most forgettable movies I have ever seen. I've seen two separate people say that they look forward to watching Runner Runner on a long-haul flight, and they're exactly right. It's not a film I could ever recommend anyone watch unless they were trapped in a highly pressurised metal tube in the sky. Perhaps it's no coincidence the screening I attended had complimentary bags of peanuts.

The Philadelphia Inquiry features the following scathing review:

Runner Runner is the sort of generic crime thriller - stick-figure characters, pointless muddle of plot, people entering and exiting SUVs and Lear jets with a sense of urgency - that feels like it could drag on forever, and drag us down into a purgatory of stupefaction with it.

Just 18 percent of critics at movie review aggregator site RottenTomatoes.com have given the film a thumb’s up.  That’s down 2 percent from last week.  Bottom line: Stay away!

- Jordan Bach, Gambling911.com