Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.14.12
Alfred Hitchcock was famous for
this trick.
Deranged Robert Walker, intended
to plant incriminating evidence — a cigarette lighter — to unjustly implicate
Farley Granger in a murder, accidently drops the item into a storm drain while
nearing the scene of the crime. We viewers should be delighted; if Walker loses
the lighter, then Granger triumphs: Good wins out over evil.
 |
| Increasingly troubled by irregularities in their company books, Brooke (Brit Marling) shares her concerns with her father (Richard Gere). But his efforts to reassure her ring hollow, forcing this intelligent young woman to wonder why he's being so evasive. What might he be hiding? |
And yet, perversely, as Walker
stuffs his arm through the grate during this climactic scene in Strangers on a
Train, his fingers not quite able to reach the lighter, we’re on the edge of
our seats ... wanting him to succeed.
In Frenzy, serial killer Barry
Foster disposes of his latest victim in a potato sack that is dumped into the
rear of a truck filled with such sacks. Shortly thereafter, Foster realizes
that his monogrammed stick pin, lost in the struggle, must be clasped in the
dead woman’s hand. Foster tears off after the truck, climbs inside and starts
pawing through burlap sacks.
We shouldn’t root for him;
failure means that the wholly innocent — but circumstantially accused — Jon
Finch will go free. But, again, we become emotionally invested in Foster’s
search, and feel relieved when he finds the body ... and calmly breaks her
fingers in order to retrieve the pin held tight in her fist.
In writer/director Nicholas
Jarecki’s richly nuanced Arbitrage, uber-wealthy New York hedge fund magnate
Robert Miller (Richard Gere) cheats on his wife, and has embezzled funds in
order to conceal a $420 million shortfall that would derail the sale of his
company to a bank. Just to dig the hole deeper, he flees the scene of a road
accident in order to evade responsibility.
Make no mistake: Miller is a bad
guy ... a smug, self-serving reprobate at best, and a conniving, soulless,
law-breaking bastard at worst. And still, almost against our wills, we cheer
him on, hoping that he’ll somehow keep all these tottering plates spinning, and
somehow extricate himself from this ever-widening disaster of his own creation.
Jarecki’s clever premise and
archly savvy script deserve considerable credit, as does Gere, giving the performance
of his often under-appreciated career. But he’s not the only person tearing up
the screen; solid supporting performances also are turned in by Susan Sarandon,
Brit Marling, Tim Roth and young Nate Parker.
This is the second sleek, smart
financial thriller we’ve seen recently, coming on the heels of last year’s
similarly absorbing Margin Call; one could assume (correctly) that we’re all
a bit obsessed by the topic. Margin Call was suggested strongly by actual
Wall Street skullduggery, whereas Arbitrage is pure melodramatic fiction ...
and yet Jarecki’s storyline looks, sounds and feels uncomfortably authentic.
Which is to say — sadly — that
I’ve no doubt Miller’s real-world counterparts routinely engage in such sordid
behavior. Contemplating the control they exert on our ship of state is
seriously unsettling.
We’re introduced to Miller on his
60th birthday, celebrated at home while surrounded by his wife (Sarandon, as
Ellen), his grown children — Brooke (Marling) and Peter (Austin Lysy), both
employees at their father’s firm —and their families. Miller waxes poetically
about this generational entourage being his “greatest achievement,” an
apparently uncharacteristic sentiment that sets off Brooke’s radar; her father,
she knows, gets maudlin only when business is going badly.
And, indeed, that’s the case. The
pending company sale hinges on a rigged audit that will conceal the cooked
books, and — worse yet — the buyer keeps ducking negotiation meetings, instead
sending flunkies. Might he know something?
The crocodile nature of Miller’s schmaltzy
tears becomes apparent when he prematurely abandons his own party — claiming
the call of “work at the office” — in order to celebrate the event more quietly
with girlfriend Julie Côte (Laetitia Casta). She’s a French art dealer looking
to establish her own creative career; to that end, Miller has financed a
gallery and even concealed her apartment on his company’s books.
Back at the office — for real —
Brooke has uncovered disturbing evidence of financial chicanery. Ever the loyal
daughter, she shares this discovery with her father, lacking the slightest
suspicion that he’d be the source of what seems to be fraud.
Then comes the tragic vehicular
accident, from which Miller stumbles away, unseen. Or so he hopes. His loyal
but cautionary lawyer (Stuart Margolin, also delivering a well modulated
performance) warns that Miller will have overlooked “at least 50 things,” any
one of which could result in arrest, trial and a media circus ... which,
naturally, would derail the pending company sale. Miller chooses to remain
quiet.
But the cop who catches the case
(Roth, as Detective Bryer) is imaginative, savvy and tenacious; he also has
good instincts. From their first “polite” meeting — a masterpiece of innuendo
and veiled threat, and a superb verbal duel by both actors — Bryer knows that
Miller fled the accident and abandoned a victim. Better yet, Bryer knows
precisely how to apply pressure, and who best to squeeze.
That would be Jimmy Grant
(Parker), a young man with an intriguing tie to Miller’s past. We eventually
learn the circumstances, but initially see only that Miller regards Jimmy as
the one honorable individual in his life: a rather delectable irony. Surrounded
by fat-cat lawyers and high-profile movers and shakers — in other words, his
own kind — Miller prefers to trust a street kid from a dodgy part of the city.
But because Jimmy doesn’t belong
to Miller’s rarefied universe, this young man is desperately, painfully
vulnerable ... and so we begin to wonder if Miller’s many moral failings will
include throwing this loyal lamb to the wolves, in order to save his own skin.
Gere has long been dogged by
accusations that his limited acting chops bring down otherwise solid dramas,
but that never has been fair. True, his range is narrow, and he has been
involved in more than his share of stinkers (King David, First Knight, Red
Corner and The Mothman Prophecies, among others). But Gere also is
sensational in the right role, and has electrified the screen in films ranging from American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman to Primal Fear and Chicago.
He’s at his best playing shady,
smarmy alpha males who arrogantly believe they can fool, cheat or otherwise
end-run their perceived inferiors; we love to watch him inhabit such
characters, because it’s so much fun when they get caught. Consider his
surprisingly nuanced work in The Hoax — based on actual events — as ample
evidence.
Gere’s performance here is a
benchmark for all such parts, to be placed alongside Michael Douglas’ work in Wall Street (the first one, not the sequel). Gere throws himself ferociously
into the role, and it’s impossible not to admire a man — Miller — who is so
adept at his work ... which is, simply, being a cad.
Roth, an equally striking
on-camera presence, gives as good as he gets; his verbal sparring with Gere is
the stuff of memorable cinema. Roth also scores well in a subtler part, because
Jarecki’s script quickly forces us to confront a common moral quandary: Is it permissible
to behave a “little bit” badly, in pursuit of a nobler goal?
And if the answer is a hesitant
yes, are the good guys really any better than the bad guys?
Marling, a rising multi-hyphenate
best known for co-scripting little films in which she also stars (Another Earth, Sound of My Voice), makes Brooke the character with whom we most
easily empathize: an intelligent, ethical woman whom we can count on to do the
right thing. Parker, conversely, is the feisty yet wholly overwhelmed innocent:
the one we desperately hope won’t drown in this rising tide of bad behavior.
The always effervescent Sarandon
seems underused at first, but Jarecki is merely holding her back; Ellen
Miller’s “moment” comes in the third act, and it’s memorable.
Jarecki comes to us with modest prior
credits: TV commercials, music videos, a short film and co-authorship of the
script to 2008’s The Informers, a complex, multi-strand — and failed —
roundelay drama akin to the Academy Award-winning Crash. I’ve no idea how
that thin résumé allowed him to persuade anybody to finance Arbitrage, but
I’m grateful to all the folks who gave the green light; this is smooth,
accomplished scripting and filmmaking.
As the saying goes, I can’t wait
to see what Jarecki does next.
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