ar·bi·trage
[ahr-bi-trahzh]
noun
1. Finance. The simultaneous purchase and sale of the same securities, commodities, or foreign exchange in different markets to profit from unequal prices.
“Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” (Danny DeVito in Heist)
The above definition and quote go hand in hand when describing Nicholas Jarecki’s dramatic film debut Arbitrage. Its protagonist, venture capitalist Robert Miller, is a steely-eyed individual who shields his heartlessness with a very placid face, appearing unruffled most of the time. The same could be said of Richard Gere who portrays Miller.
Gere is an unassuming actor. One may infer that to mean bland. In a recent Entertainment Weekly profile on his career and this latest film the magazine outlined his career highs as an actor. Most can recall Pretty Woman which, coincidentally, arrived a decade after his American Gigolo, but that romantic comedy is mostly remembered for Julia Roberts’ star-making turn. While the actor hasn’t had a prolific career – once known mostly as Cindy Crawford’s husband – Gere has churned out memorable performances in An Officer and a Gentleman, Primal Fear, Chicago, and Unfaithful.
Arbitrage is unquestionably the actor’s meatiest role in more than a decade. Never would I have suspected that he could play a heartless bastard so well. Dressed in extravagant business attire, his suit of armor is a symbol for his Wall Street success. And Gere’s once perfectly coifed dark hair is no longer; it’s been replaced by a silvery mane. Is it a means to show his age or is it an embodiment of character? As a man who is worth hundreds of millions, is charming when he needs to be, and generous at times, it doesn’t take long to discover how much of a silver fox he really is. Business magazines may show a beaming face of reassured success, but in reality he is just masquerading his craftiness at being a world-class fraud.
Over the course of 100 minutes we see him lying, engaged in carnal relations with his mistress, committing multiple felonies (including murder) and making several apologies about his actions. While he makes these soft apologies the film does not apologize for his behavior. That’s part of the attraction: to have a main character that we know to be a bastard and who should pay for his transgressions, yet are hypnotized watching him try to get away with it. Call it the car-crash syndrome. The inability to turn away from something we know to be bad.
At the start of the film he is working on brokering a merger of his venture capital empire with a bank on hard times needing to bolster its portfolio. The problem is that Miller has hidden $400 million in debt from investors and more importantly from his daughter, Brooke (Brit Marling). Young, smart and determined, she maintains the position of CFO of the empire. Brooke looks up to her father and would stand by him no matter what, but she has much to learn about people and trust. Unsuspecting that her father has borrowed $412 million to ensure that the company books look legit, should the truth be revealed Brooke would find herself unwittingly complicit in the deception and face a stiff fine and/or prison sentence. If this sounds a little too familiar it could be because of the news coverage given to Bernie Madoff and his $18 billion Ponzi scheme.
Cooking the books so he can sell the company off to a bank tycoon (played by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter), Gere acts smooth, disguising his jangled nerves. That’s one problem. The other is tawdrier in nature: a mistress that begets a car accident that begets a cover up. This story thread could have served as the basis of its own movie or a very special episode of Law & Order. Yet the confluence of events gives us overlapping problems that only further advance Miller’s personal dilemmas.
The fight or flight scenario that exists when one is put into a situation that requires expedient action has Miller looking to phone a friend. Does he dare use his cell phone to call 911 or his lawyer? He chooses option C: walking away from the scene of the accident and phoning Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), the son of Miller’s former chauffeur. This further complicates matters making Grant a witness after the fact. Enter also a police detective (Tim Roth) investigating the fatal accident and keying in on Miller.
Richard Gere’s masterful stroke as Robert Miller is his ability to betray anyone to ensure that he remains the victor. This allows signature moments for both Nate Parker and Susan Sarandon, who plays Gere’s wife, Ellen. Parker’s Jimmy Grant could have easily been written as a stereotypical African American male – one who acts thuggish and wears his pants at a certain length. In his scenes with Gere, first as an accessory after the fact and later when he is close to being incarcerated, he keeps his head held high. Susan Sarandon doesn’t have a flashy part, but she has a scene late in the proceedings where she gets the better of her loving husband, proving that he’s not as cunning as he thinks he is.
Nicholas Jarecki’s debut is very Hitchcockian in its execution. Only with Hitchcock, he was an expert in innocent men who are wrongly accused. This is the vice versa.
From its look and sound (Cliff Martinez delivers another strong tonal score) Arbitrage doesn’t seem like the work of a first-time feature filmmaker. With an involving story anchored by Richard Gere’s stellar performance, this thriller is definitely worth your time, even if the protagonist is a prickly, rich white guy.
Director: Nicholas Jarecki
Writer: Nicholas Jarecki
Notable Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Nate Parker, Laetitia Casta
