That ol' Silver Fox Richard Gere gives a strong performance in this drama in which the audience get the chance to witness a rich hedge fund broker put through the wringer. Gere plays Robert Miller, a man who seemingly has it all - a prosperous brokerage firm, a beautiful wife (Susan Sarandon), a clever daughter (Brit Marling) who works for him, a huge house, and a sexy French mistress on the side. His situation is built on shaky foundations however, with Miller commiting fraud to cover up massive losses so he can sell his company to an interested buyer. Things only get worse when he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes, killing his mistress and then fleeing the scene. Soon his chickens are coming home to roost, with his daughter finding out about his financial deceptions and a dogged police detective (Tim Roth) sniffing around him as the possible driver of the car. Can the canny broker connive and buy his way out of this situation?
Touted as a thriller, Arbitrage is seriously lacking in thrills. It's main problem is that it can never quite decide what it is - one moment it's a character study of a man on the edge, his whole live a deception, then it's a limp thriller with Tim Roth channelling Columbo and trying to nail the death onto Gere and then it's a tame commentary on the corrupting nature of money. By trying to be all of these things it quite spectacularly fails to be any and what we're left with is curiously uninvolving and rather boring. It doesn't help that, apart from Gere, none of the characters are much more than one-dimensional with not enough screen time devoted to building up the parts of wife, daughter or mistress. After a promising intro, Roth's detective is then criminally underused, almost as if writer/ director Nicholas Jarecki has tired of the thriller aspect. This is less of a film than a collection of scenes, with the obvious confrontations between Gere and his daughter or with Sarandon.
The addition of the character of Jimmy, a reformed black lad and the son of one of Miller's deceased workers, while feeling a little crowbarred into the story for some kind of social commentary, at least adds some variery and Nate Parker's engaging performance makes him the only really sympathetic character in the whole film. His scenes with Gere nail home the rather obvious message, thast money is not the answer to everything. Jimmy asks Miller at one stage if he thinks money can solve everything to which Miller replies "what else is there?" The film tries to find a solution that criticises the way wealthy people can buy their way out of trouble while still showing us that Miller must pay a price.
As Miller, Gere brings all his trademark cool and detachment to bear and he is really very good. Like a kind of family friendly Gordon Gecko, the biggest deception that Miller tries to pull is with himself, justifying his dubious actions as for the greater good of his company or family. When his wife chastises him for disillusioning their daughter, he retorts that she will be better for it as it is "a cold world". This is what the endless pursuit of money has led him to believe despite the importance of family that he spouts easily at other points in the film. If you like Gere, this is worth seeing but Arbitrage is plodding and dull.
GK Rating: ** The Blog of Delights
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