New Poker Movie “Runner, Runner” Is Not a Poker Movie

October 5, 2013

It didn’t take long for the real-life fight for online gambling regulations to make it to the big screen. The new Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake movie “Runner, Runner” depicts the tale of a young gambler who is sucked into the business of an offshore poker site and its criminal wheeling and dealing. While the movie comes from the same group of writers who brought us the classic Rounders, the screenwriters don’t see the film as a “poker movie.”

Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien say, “We don’t really consider ‘Runner, Runner’ a poker movie. It’s a thriller set against online gambling. The movie starts out centered around poker because a character is cheated by an online poker site, but it’s more about the business of online poker, the same way a movie like ‘The Firm’ is set around a law firm and the Mafia.”

While the American Gaming Association isn’t relying on a federal bill to regulate online poker in the US, they aren’t missing the opportunity to make a case to Congress based on the realizations that the movie reveals about offshore poker rings.

Though the movie has received mixed reviews and hasn’t impressed the top critiques in the country, it is nothing less than an entertaining crime thriller, and whether or not the movie is or isn’t about poker, it’s still worth seeing. And while Rounders fans are still waiting on “Rounders 2,” this isn’t it, though some critics are saying it is very similar in terms of language and plot.

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