Arbitrage

"What's your price?" The question haunts Richard Gere's character of Robert Miller, a vain hedge fund manager married to Ellen (Susan Sarandon) and preparing to hand down his business dynasty to his daughter Brooke (Brit Marling). That is, until a freak accident with his mistress coincides with a self-perpetrating fraud scandal. Now confronted with unprecedented stress, Miller has to fight to keep his family and business intact.

Richard Gere's absence on the Oscar nomination stage for the entirety of his career will hopefully be ended with this stunning character study. Gere is in perfect form, personifying a complicated man who for once sees the results of his narcissistic actions. While his empire crumbles, his personal life goes the same way. Every scene Gere is in brings to light just how powerful an actor he is.

But an actor would be nothing without a powerful script. The author of the film's screenplay is also the film's director, Nicholas Jarecki, the co-author of the 2009 film adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis film "The Informers". In his largest film yet, Jarecki keeps with themes of arrogance that comes with power. The script moves at a brisk pace, keeping your attention and leaving you nearly breathless once you've reached the conclusion.

Cinematography and setting blend easily into the background of these character's actions. New York City is brought to live, as she has countless times before, as the epicenter and culmination of the good and the bad. But what sets the screen apart from any other NYC-set film is the fact that nothing seems to be done to make NYC any more like NYC. The film's version of the city is exactly how it is in real life.

Susan Sarandon, still as beautiful as ever, steals her scenes as Miller's powerful wife. As does Brit Marling and especially Nate Parker, newcomers full of promise. The sole weak spot is, surprisingly, the performance of Tim Roth, the detective. His character starts the film with a Brooklyn-type accent. In his second scene Roth seems to attain his native Cockney accent, then lose it as the film progresses. He ends with a bizarre jumble of both.

"Arbitrage" is an intelligent, engaging thriller about the depths of bad decisions made from the arrogance of power. It is a must-see of the 2012 film season.

I read an interview with Richard Gere about this movie and saw that Susan Sarandon was in the same movie too and thought, "This has to be a good one..." It is OK, but its definitely not great. There is a lot of dramatic tension, but it seems like the script was dumbed down for the Hollywood mass market. Totally understand the rationale of the approach, but I think that, as a result, the movie fell short of being compelling.

When the English do this kind of movie, or the Europeans, what you get is dark tragic theatre. When the Americans try to do it, I think that they end up doing too much test marketing and as a result the movie suffers.

With the really serious depth of talent in the cast, you would have to think that there was much more that could have been put on the screen (and may have been on the cutting room floor for all I know).

There is one redeeming feature though. This movie does reveal a darkness, and offers a comment on the culture of today, of capitalism, of markets, of law etc... It doesn't pull any punches in that regard and that is a really good thing!

Arbitrage – CATCH IT (B+) Arbitrage is an interesting thriller New York hedge-fund magnate Robert Miller (Richard Gere) on the eve of his 60th birthday; he appears the very portrait of success in American business and family life. But behind the gilded walls of his mansion, Miller is in over his head, desperately trying to complete the sale of his trading empire to a major bank before the depths of his fraud are revealed. Struggling to conceal his duplicity from loyal wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) and brilliant daughter and heir-apparent Brooke (Brit Marling), Miller's also balancing an affair with French art-dealer Julie Cote (Laetetia Casta). Just as he's about to unload his troubled empire, an unexpected bloody error forces him to juggle family, business, and crime with the aid of Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), a face from Miller's past. Arbitrage has a very interesting concept, when you thought its only about the financial corruption, the movie takes a huge turn and we see a 60 years old man wounded juggling to control his financial status along with the crime he committed unintentionally. Richard Gere is phenomenal in Arbitrage; there isn't a moment when he surprises you with his brilliant performance. I have to say after a really long time I saw Richard Gere in a movie up to his caliber. Susan Sarandon is elegant and even though she doesn't have as many scenes as I would have wanted but still she impresses me as always. Brit Marling, the writer/director/actress of Another Earth is eloquent and stands tall in front of veterans like Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere. She was so good that I wanted to see more of her even though she was the most featured female among the cast. He NY central part scene with Richard Gere is simply amazing. I would love to see her soon in other movies. She is someone to watch out for in 2013. Laetitia Casta is gorgeous and Nate Parker did his part with utmost honesty. Even though I wanted to see the family dynamics of Robert Miller more but as it's a thriller they kept the movie short to emphasizes on more important matters. I had good time watching it. It's a good thriller.

Greetings again from the darkness. Most of us don't tread in the world of corporate greed, deceit and fraud that defines the now four years ago financial crisis. Twenty five years ago Gordon Gekko in Wall Street put a face to corporate greed. Writer/Director Nicholas Jarecki now gives us Robert Miller, as portrayed by Richard Gere, for the face of Wall Street fraud ... the step beyond greed that Bernie Madoff made famous. Toss in a Chappaquiddick-type tragedy and it's abundantly clear that Robert Miller is no modern day saint.

No matter how much we would prefer it to be otherwise, there is something to the charisma and emotional power of the few who seize control as politicians, CEO's and cult leaders ... all subjects of recent films. During this film, we never once doubt that Gere's Miller is a scam artist with power. He is not a good guy, despite his warm smile as he says all the right things to his family and close circle of advisors. We are sickened that he is able to fool so many. Yet, the reason this story is so familiar is that it rings so true.

Watching Miller's house of cards slowly crumble is both fascinating and nerve-racking. We aren't rooting for him, but we still get caught up in his web of deceit. His demented sense of "responsibilities" guide him down the path of betrayal ... a path that stomps on his all-knowing wife, his ultra-trusting daughter, his sensitive mistress, and a young guy just trying to get his life in order.

The supporting cast is strong led by Susan Sarandon as the wife, Brit Marling (Another Earth) as the daughter, and Tim Roth as the crusty NY Detective trying to catch the big fish. However, this is Gere's film and he delivers his best in years. It's also great to see Stuart Margolin, who was so entertaining as Angel in The Rockford Files back in the 70's. Another interesting casting choice has long time "Vanity Fair" editor Graydon Carter as the head of the financial institution looking to purchase Miller's company.

Again, the individual pieces of the story are all quite familiar, but filmmaker Jarecki does a nice job of assembling the pieces in a manner that keep us engaged. It's a nice example of how the rules are different for the rich, and show how the worst of them even think they can get away with murder! (www.MovieReviewsFromTheDark.wordpress.com)

It had been a while since I had either seen Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon or Tim Roth in anything noteworthy but to my own surprise, this was being a solid thriller, with truly some great performances by its cast.

It is absolutely true that without its cast this would had been a very formulaic, standard, average, little thriller. As a matter of fact, it more feels like an extended "Law & Order" episode. The characters and developments aren't anything surprising but the movie truly gets made interesting by its cast, who also help to make this a convincing and effective thriller.

I have never even been a too big fan of Richard Gere but he simply was absolutely great in this! He mostly carries this entire movie and he does this by playing a sort of despicable character. So it's a real accomplishment by him that he still managed to turn the main character into a still likable enough one, that you never lost interest in. He doesn't make the right choices throughout the movie but that's what keeps his character interesting and helps to let the movie move along, even during its slower moments.

It's the sort of thriller in which everything starts to go from bad to worse for its main character, when his lies and actions only get him in more and deeper problems and drags those close to him down, along with him.

But really, it remains a far from perfect thriller and still does plenty of things wrong. It does a poor job at handling some of its characters for instance. For example, it heavily under uses the Susan Sarandon character, who could had given the movie a whole other dimension and some more depth with her character. After all, she plays the main character's wife, who has certain knowledge about things that don't come into play until very late into the movie, when things are already starting to wrap up. The whole dynamic between her and the Gere character had much more potential really and I thought it was a real shame this didn't get explored any further and better. Also, I would had loved to have seen more of Susan Sarandon, since she gave away a great performance.

That's a bit of a problem with this entire movie; it just doesn't know how to handle and what to do with certain characters. The Tim Roth character also definitely feels a bit underused. When he shows up you think he is going to play a big and important role for this movie but in fact there are large portions of the movie in which his character plays no role at all. I absolutely loved his scene with Richard Gere and I was hoping for more moments like that, which unfortunately just never came.

I still really enjoyed this thriller and at times was even loving it. It's definitely a better than average genre attempt, despite still having a very standard and familiar type of premise and story in it. So in essence, nothing surprising but it's all still very well made and acted out by its impressive cast, which already is worth the price alone.

7/10

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