A trailer for Runner, Runner, the online poker movie starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck, has surfaced, and let’s just say right off the top that no one expected crocodiles. The movie, written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the writing team behind the poker world’s beloved Rounders flick, is set to hit US theaters on September 27, 2013. However, after viewing the trailer, it may be safe to say that Runner, Runner will lack Rounders’ gritty realism. That is, unless you or your online poker buddies have ever witnessed someone tossed into a pen of live crocodiles.
Yep, crocodiles. Apparently, at some point in the movie, Affleck’s online gambling operator character decides to feed some unlucky bit player to the crocs in order to show Timberlake who’s boss (or because Affleck’s character forgot to pick up ground beef at the local supermarket). The poor guy getting munched could be a rival operator, a deadbeat player or just someone who thought the Affleck-directed Oscar winner Argo was a pile of hooey. Anyway, for those of you reading this who actually lived through the Costa Rican online gambling scene’s ‘wild west’ days in the 1990’s, perhaps this rings true. After all, crocs are plentiful in Costa Rica. But to our eyes, it looks more like something serial fabricator Ben Mezrich might have concocted based on an operator’s horror story of some girl he took out of the Del Rey Hotel who turned out to have a serious overbite.
But hey, artistic license, right? If you wanna put bums in theater seats these days, you gotta give people their money’s worth. So check out the Runner, Runner trailer below, then scroll down a little further for some outtakes.
