It has been quite a long time since a proper gambling movie has received the good old fashioned Hollywood treatment, which is probably at least one explanation behind the excited buzz surrounding the upcoming release Runner, Runner starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake.
A new round of chatter about the soon-to-be-released film started up again this week, with the release of the trailer for Runner, Runner, whose plot centers around a college student, played by Timberlake, going a mission to find the man, played by Affleck, who he believes cheated him in an online poker scam.
Art mimics life as plot resembles real life online poker scandal
Art is often accused of imitating life, and in this case, Runner, Runner, directed by Brad Furman, who also directed The Lincoln Lawyer, is no exception. If the trailer is indicative of the overall theme of the movie, then viewers can expect the plot to unfold with some not-so-subtle similarities to the infamous Ultimate Bet scandal, a story that has reared its head again with the recent release of audio recordings on which the higher-ups at the room freely admit that they used so-called "God" software to view players' hole cards and defraud them out of millions of dollars.
Affleck a gambler off screen, too
Though in public Massachusetts-born Affleck enjoys the image of a squeaky clean family man (the whole Jennifer Lopez fiasco aside), in his off-screen life he has been known to partake of high stakes gambling. In fact, Affleck recently said publicly that he was caught up in the above-mentioned Ultimate Bet scandal, remarking that he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to the superuser feature employed by that site's shady operators.
Affleck has also been known to participate in ultra exclusive high-stakes poker games in California, with gossip sites occasionally reporting about his wins and losses in that endeavor.
Star has never been in a gambling flick before
While Affleck has himself never taken on a role in a film related to gambling or poker, his best friend and writing partner, Matt Damon, was the star of Rounders, a 1998 cult favorite poker film that is often regarded as being the best movie made about the game. Whether Runner, Runner can equal the success, and enduring popularity, of its predecessor remains to be seen, but we're willing to wager the price of a ticket that it will give it a run for its money.
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