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.

Richard Gere in his probably best performance ever, confident, tense, deep. The veteran actor used all his qualities in this very gripping "Arbitrage", a drama about crazy and cynical calculations behind Wall Street intrigues. Arbitrage asks the viewer to sympathize with a guy

cheating and trying to cover terrible things and shows many different characters, such as hard-working cops, an immaculate daughter, ruthless business partners, as well as a suffering wife. There are holes in the plot but the audience doesn't mind too much, because of the perfect tension and the detailed script. Gere is perfect, he gets to show real desperation, anger and discomfort at the same time. Arbitrage is special and different from other similar movies due to its refusal to condemn this world.

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.

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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It seems quite a letdown that Richard Gere's impressive performance in this handsomely mounted 2012 thriller has been relegated to On Demand, but the same fate befell 2011's "Margin Call", another effectively Machiavellian Wall Street-set thriller, probably because the mechanics of cutting big financial deals just doesn't feel all that cinematic despite being terrific showcases for able actors. With his trademark élan in check, he plays Robert Miller, a billionaire Wall Street investment executive whose silken imperturbable manner can charm and kill at the same time. Miller's company is in the middle of a federal audit as he tries to sell it. The problem is that he has illegally borrowed more than $400 million, well beyond the true value of the company. The lender threatens to take his money back, but Miller stops at nothing to keep the fraud under wraps, his family and the IRS in the dark, and his firm functioning more or less as usual.

Miller is simply unflappable no matter what the circumstance is, whether it's negotiating an unethical high financial deal, attending his 60th- birthday party, or spending a few tempestuous hours with his mistress, a French art gallery owner whose neediness makes Miller vulnerable to a moment of truth he cannot control. An unexpected event literally leaves blood on his hands, and a web of deception drops him further into an abyss. Instead of seeking absolution, Miller moves from chilly manipulation to unrepentant criminality. The evolution feels seamless because Miller never sees anything wrong with what he does, and first- time director Nicholas Jarecki does quite a capable job of maintaining the pace and momentum of an internally driven thriller that allows the main character to unravel in a series of dialogue-heavy scenes courtesy of Jarecki's insightful screenplay, an excellent sophomore effort (his first was co-writing 2008's "The Informers" with Bret Easton Ellis).

Although he was a last-minute replacement for Al Pacino (who would have brought an earthier dimension to the role), Gere is smartly cast here because his screen persona has often provided a glacial veneer over a seething core of anger and resentment. Playing Miller allows him to do just that in a most arresting manner that makes him both morally repellent but oddly sympathetic. As the detective intent on getting Miller convicted, Tim Roth is quite effective down to the Columbo-like inquisitiveness and Jersey Shore accent. Nate Parker brings unexpected depth as the moral center of the story, a Harlem kid whom Miller previously helped out of a jam but who now faces much bigger consequences returning the favor. Indie breakout Brit Marling ("Another Earth") affectingly plays Miller's sharply analytical daughter, the chief accountant of his firm who slowly realizes her father's true nature. Susan Sarandon has relatively few scenes as Miller's insulated wife Ellen, but her steely intelligence comes through in the climax. It's worth seeking out.