Customer Reviews

Arbitrage

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Legendary billionaire hedge fund magnate Robert Miller appears to have it all, great wealth, great family, supportive wife, a pending sale of his business empire, and a charming if somewhat cloying French mistress. But disaster can lurk behind the most distinguished facade waiting for its golden opportunity.

Borrowing $450 million off the books to cover up fraudulent accounting, testing an impatient hard nosed friend come debtor for his sake, negotiating the sale of his business to a businessman blowing hot and cold, a frustrated and dangerous mistress, inquiring auditors, a loyal curious daughter played by Brit Marling, a doltish son, an entitled wife played by Susan Sarandon who may be working her own Arbitrage. This creates much stress in a billionaire's life.

Anything can go wrong. The inciting event occurs early when his mistress dies in a Chappaquiddick style accident while he drives becoming the tragic glass through which the movie is imbibed.

Miller faces a succession of moral dilemmas. The choices being black and white he somehow selects the moral grey. You may wonder what you would do in his situation. If you're like me you suspect he might do the right thing under different circumstances.

The person who rescues him from this situation becomes the lever the police detective played by Tim Roth use to get at Miller. Interestingly, the detective does not pursue people of wealth directly, but puts the poor weak link to the most difficult test even illegally manipulating the legal system against him.

Susan Sarandon looked spectacular in this movie I thought and performed excellently and effortleslly in her scenes. I have preferred Brit Marling's performances in her Indie movies such as Another Earth and Sound of my Voice.

I found this to be quite an entertaining and engrossing movie which kept me guessing throughout. Undoubtedly, there are shades of Madoff and other financial scandals which inspired Arbitrage. What gets me is that Miller is fully aware what is right and wrong. It's not like he is a bad guy, and certainly his behavior is understandable, and yet I feel a sense of conflict about him.

On the one hand you want him to get get caught or take responsibility. On the other hand you find yourself rooting for him to find the light at the end of the tunnel and get out of the mess. Kudos to the writer director Nicholas Jarecki for doing such a good job with this.

The golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.

Does Miller learn from his experiences? If a movie does not give you the type of closure you expect, it may be a good thing because that is what happens in life, and life can be full of surprises,can it not?

I think this is one of the best performances of Gere's career. It achieved a modest $2 million on its opening weekend on a very limited release in 197 theaters yet managed an impressive $10,000 per theater. Why it was opened in such a limited way is somewhat of a puzzle as it's quite a good movie.

I think most people who like the premise will love the movie and I hope this was helpful.

Arbitrage(released Jan/12) stars,among others,Richard Gere as Robert Miller,Susan Sarandon as Ellen Miller,Tim Roth as Det.Bryer,Brit Marling as Brooke Miller,Laetitia Casta as Julie Cote,Nate Parker as Jimmy Grant,Stuart Margolin as Syd Felder,and Chris Eigeman as Gavin Briar.Yes,the name says it all,the title meaning taking advantage of a disparity in markets and reaping profits,ideally,with zero cost.And the film is all business too,with all the actors here turning in a very good performance.
The story finds Gere as the head of a large corporation.Things seem perfect in his world,with a lovely wife,daughter and a thriving business.Slowly we learn things are not all that rosy.He invested heavily in a copper mine in Russia and at first things were rolling along tremendously.Later the countrie`s export rules changed and Gere was left holding the bag and had to fork out millions he didn`t readily have.He took from his own investors to plug the financial gap in the books;taking from Paul to pay Peter.In the end it still left a $400,000,000 gap that he plugged with a friends money.However now the friend is calling in his loan just before a rival company is about to possibly buy Gere`s company,which would close the gap.
One night he visits the gallery of a young French girl who is a budding artist,who he bankrolls and has had an ongoing affair with for some time.They take a ride out to a place of his outside of NYC that he owns.On the way he briefly falls asleep and the car flips over several times.His amour is dead and he is devastated and panicking.He makes a phone call to a young man.His father,who used to work for him,and asked Gere,when he passed away,to keep an eye on as he grew up.He asks him to come and fetch him and take him home.On the way to make the call the car Gere had been driving blows up.
Gere arrives home and disposes of the security camera evidence in his apartment and burns his shirt which had blood on it.As the movie progresses the heat gets turned up ever slower,whether it is the police sniffing around Gere,and/or the police putting the heat on the young man.Also the man responsible for wanting to buy his firm keeps putting his offer off,while he keeps sending underlings to negotiate for him,which stresses Gere ever more.Adding fuel to this ever growing out of control fire,is Gere`s daughter who is his chief accountant.She has discovered the gap in funds and is pressuring him to come clean on the reasoning behind it.
Working for Gere is his lawyer,who is pulling every trick out of his hat he can for Gere.He has obtained an excellent lawyer for the young man who picked him up that fateful night,and who now the police are attempting to indict.Gere also is forced to tell his daughter the truth about the gap in funds and she is devastated that he not only hid it from her but that she could also lose her license.The two don`t part on friendly terms.At the height of all the heat,Gere is finally able to have a tete a`tete with the man who has been offering to buy his company.Gere gambles by coming on strong and gets his asking price and a signed deal on the spot.That is one major hole plugged.Then it is discovered some crucial evidence in the case against his young driver has been falsified and the case is summarily dismissed.Just as everything was set to blow up in his face,everything now starts to deflate and Gere,his finances and employees are all saved from disgrace.However there remains one last cog to be fixed....his wife.She confronts Gere and knows he wasn`t telling the truth about that fateful night and she also knew about the affair with the girl who died.For silence she wants him to turn over a major charity event`s holdings to her.He balks but in the end,if he wants his freedom,he will and he does.The film ends as Gere is attending his charity function to receive an award,with his daughter doing the intro and saying all the right things,with his ``loving`` wife by his side.As he stands ready to speak....fade to black.
An excellent spot to stop the film on.This plot may seem like a variation on a theme,with yet another inside look at big business,how they operate,how corrupt they can be and how they wield their power.Goodness knows there has been enough of those types of films over the years.But this film has enough of a good plot,and some fine actors on board,to pull it off quite gracefully.I was surprised seeing ``Angel`` from the Rockford Files,Stuart Margolin,who turned in a very fine performance as Gere`s lawyer.There is a plot gap that,for me,was quite big.The police never did know the driver of the car that night,though they had their suspicions.Every car has a VIN(vehicle identification number)and even though the car caught on fire,it should still have been obtainable.They would have known right away who the owner of the car was through that.But that would have meant a shorter film,or a plot going in another direction than the writers wishes.
Technically speaking the film is in its w/s a/r of 1:85:1 and is clear and crisp.The only extra is some commentary.
All in all a surprisingly good film and look at the head of a financially questionable company,who finds himself in trouble way over his head.Through a lot of string pulling and sheer luck he gets out from under it all.But at what cost.Recommended.

Arbitrage is a great thriller from writher director [Nicholas Jarecki,]who pits [Richard Gere]
against him-self,after borrowing $450 million from a friend to cover a fraudulent deal,that actually
has a dead line date,so when his mistress ends up dead in a car accident driven by him, he actually
fell asleep at the wheel,that compounded his problem even more,up comes NYPD detective who wants
nothing but to put him away,[Tim Roth] who plays the detective Michael Bryer is so good in every Role
i've seen him in,except [Funny Games] that movie was also good,
running time 106 min
aspect ratio 1.85:1
1080p high Definition

Richard portrays a high society man on the verge of financial ruin who gambles his financial and personal well-being...winning at one and loosing the other in multiple ways.

Loved this movie, and Im not particularly a great fan of Richard Gere, although he has done a good job in several films Ive viewed. But Arbitrage was well-directed, had a fine cast, was well-acted, and provided lots of suspense and mystery - with a twist ending! Will definitely watch it again at a later date and it has taken its place on my DVD rack! Thank you!

Richard Gere stars as a millionaire Wall Street financier with big troubles at work and a dead mistress, too.

It's always a bad sign when I have to look up the meaning of a movie title after seeing the movie and still don't know what it means. This was a big disappointment, although the acting was excellent. Richard Gere is always a pleasure to watch; he's confidant, capable, and charismatic, giving a very good performance as a single-minded and unscrupulous man. The problem here is the script, which is confusing and boring, and gives us no one to root for. None of the characters are likable and most of the dialogue consist of muffled references to Big Trade Deals that we aren't meant to fully understand.

The story paints a believable picture of a powerful man who can buy anything except, of course, his family's love. The movie is predictable and only interesting in brief spurts; basically, it's an unsympathetic and dull story. Recommended only for those who find high finance interesting.