Release Date: September 14, 2012 (Limited)
Current Showing via OnDemand Platforms
Director: Nicholas Jarecki
MPAA Rating: R
Film Pulse Score: 7.5/10
Arbitrage tells a surprisingly simple story of a complex man dealing with a series of complex situations. In Nicholas Jarecki’s first feature – not counting a documentary, The Outsider – Richard Gere plays a man whose life could easily unravel if it were not for the fact that the extremely wealthy are not only treated differently but treats differently. Jarecki has created a timely story about Wall Street fraud and a man in that world who gets away with, well, just about everything. That we identify and sympathize with Gere’s character is not only a testament to the writing and direction but to Gere’s unfailing ability to inhabit a relatively unlikeable person and make him somehow too real to despise.
The situations in which Richard Miller (Gere) finds himself are largely two-fold. He has made an unwise investment in a Russian copper mine, the money from which has stopped being let out of the country. To hide the failing investment, he has borrowed over $400 million from a friend to cover his losses and now the friend wants the money back. In the midst of his company’s audit in preparation for its sell to an investment bank, he engages in “fuzzy” accounting and hides it from his daughter Brooke (Brit Marling) who happens to be his Chief Investment Officer. Secondly, he has a mistress (Laetitia Casta) and well, what multi-millionaire in the movies does not; unfortunately, he accidentally kills her in a car crash and leaves her dead body in the burning car. He hides the fact that he was there and calls a young, African-American man named Jimmy (Nate Parker) whose father used to work for him to pick him up and take him home. In doing so, young Jimmy becomes an accomplice in Miller’s crime.
Enter Detective Michael Bryer (Tim Roth) who finds out what happened on that fateful night in the car and goes after Jimmy in hopes of catching the much bigger fish, Miller. About half of the film involves Bryer’s hounding of Jimmy to give up Miller and Jimmy’s continued protection of his benefactor. The other half involves Miller’s hiding of money and his willingness to throw his daughter under the proverbial bus. Miller’s wife, Ellen (Susan Sarandon) knows that her husband was gone that fateful night, putting two and two together, figuring out not only what happened to his mistress and his cover-up but also what he has done financially when she confronts her daughter who has uncovered the accounting lie. Ellen confronts Robert and blackmails him in a terrific scene beautifully played by both Gere and Sarandon.
If it sounds like there are two distinct stories here, there are, and that sadly detracts from the film’s otherwise interesting character study. Either story would have been strong enough on their own, but put together they create a somewhat disjointed picture. What unites them is Robert Miller’s near-exact treatment of Jimmy in one lie and his daughter in the other. For that to work, Gere as Miller has to be absolutely consistent in his behavior and character and he is. There’s not a false note in his performance which is essential for the film to work. Also key is Jarecki’s belief that the audience will ultimately accept Miller’s fate with a kind of relief and resignation which I admittedly did.
In spite of the drawbacks of the dual stories, I still found the film to be a fine dramatic thriller that worked even with key clichés at work in scene after scene. I suppose the dual stories essentially work because no man with so much wealth who lives so large could be expected to have merely one crisis going on at a time. It is not just Gere’s Miller who is morally vacant – ultimately, his lawyer, Jimmy, his daughter, his wife, certain employees, and the man who buys his company figuratively and literally compromise. Whether that is their nature or the nature of being in his orbit that creates and excuses the compromises is a fascinating question the answer to which I think is best left to the beholder.
