Avis Metacritic

The movie ends in a more conventional place than the one where it begins, yet it still marks a surprising and graceful first fiction feature for writer-director Andrew Renzi.

The actor’s comic sad clown performance lifts the film above an ordinary script.

That makes the role well tailored to its occupant: Gere stays within his range of moneyed playboys, while still getting to indulge in the kind of unflattering behavior that a more put-together Richard Gere character would never exhibit.

Renzi's uneven script makes this a less sturdy vehicle than 2012's Arbitrage, and a less marketable one given the absence of thriller elements that sustained that film's character study. Still, there's plenty here for Gere's admirers to appreciate.

It promises a minute character study, but Franny, though embodied by a game Gere who in all fairness does visit places in his performance we have rarely seen him even stop by before, is less a person than a collection of quirks.

Sadly, The Benefactor proves less rich and engaging as it settles into its actual genre: It's yet another troubled-dude-starts-pulling-it-together tale.

While writer-director Andrew Renzi’s feature narrative debut is problematic whenever Gere isn’t onscreen (and even sometimes when he is), the veteran star exudes a damaged magnetism reminiscent of the character studies that thrilled discerning moviegoers in the ’70s.

Old silver-fox Gere looks great. He’s almost embarrassingly charming — which is the point — but there’s not much else here.

Writer-director Andrew Renzi treats unfettered wealth as a hyperbolic playground through which to explore masculine insecurity.

It isn’t unusual for a good premise to have a faulty execution. The Benefactor suffers from a conclusion that feels inauthentic to the real perils of addiction, as well as to its own story. The only remarkable thing about it is Gere, who really should stick to filmmakers worthy of his talent.