Now along comes Arbitrage, which is hoping to concoct as suspenseful and powerful a board-room thriller out of one man`s efforts to stay afloat in choppy financial waters. Richard Gere plays Robert Miller, a man who appears to be the very picture of economic success and family bliss. But it turns out that all is not as it seems. Robert is actually desperate to unload his fast-sinking business before it can drag him all the way to bankruptcy, a silent, not particularly legal campaign that he must keep from his long-suffering wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon), brilliant daughter Brooke (Brit Marling) and mistress Julie (Laetitia Casta). But before he can pull off the merger, he becomes involved in a bloody, terrible accident, and his castle of lies grows ever larger as he struggles to keep up appearances.
Arbitrage – Review
The bad news first: Arbitrage is, for the most part, a competent, smart film but it really isn`t half as suspenseful or thrilling as writer-director Nicholas Jarecki was clearly going for. Perhaps it`s because this is Jarecki`s first turn behind the camera he goes through the paces of setting up great emotional and financial stakes for Robert, but there`s never really much danger or tension in the way he edits his scenes together. Apart from the bone-rattling, thoroughly shattering accident that leads Robert even further down the path of deceit and deception, the rest of the movie feels a little distant and detached, as if it were unfolding in an only occasionally exciting dream.
But the strength of Jarecki`s film comes in its character development. Robert is a fascinating study of a man whose every action should be deemed morally odious and yet, the script carries him through at every point, making all of his decisions plausible, credible, human ones. The film is practically asking what we would do in his shoesâ€