When the world didn’t end in 2012, the hunger for apocalypse movies seems to have disappeared to some degree. But with the financial world ending nearly every other Monday in some shape or form, the appetite for “financial horror movies” seems to be well and truly catered for. And here comes another one, this time starring Richard Gere, Tim Roth and Susan Sarandon.
Gere plays a wealthy, hedge fund magnate who in the process of selling his trading empire, finds himself in some serious shit. Money worries are the last of this problems with what goes down, but we’ll leave that for the audience to see.
Richard Gere has been working steadily, albeit slowly over the last few years with roles here and there, many of them rather unmemorable. To his credit, Arbitrage sees the one time Mr. Cindy Crawford put in a solid enough performance. With a number of smallish storylines all interweaving into one, Gere meanders through them all quite well and is very watchable, especially as things go from bad to worse. Without giving anything away, his performance doesn’t really go anywhere though. It doesn’t reach that magic peak. It’s solid and “steady she goes”. It’s quite subtle in places but never lends itself to some special. However, his counterparts, especially Tim Roth who plays the investigating cop, stands out with a rather impressive and convincing role as a scruffy detective. Tragically he is completely underused on screen and doesn’t seem to get enough on screen time to really lift an already good performance. The same goes for Susan Sarandon, who is even more underused than Roth. It’s shame really, as all three look like they work together quite well.
Arbitrage is nothing you haven’t seen before. It’s the usual thriller fare and while clever in a few places it’s also rather clunky in others, with some scenes suffering greatly at the hands of an over excited editor. Scenes between Gere and Sarandon could have been something really special, but instead feel forced and rapid. All that said though, Nicholas Jarecki keeps things trundling along in his feature film debut. With good, but limited performances Arbitrage does provide some form of entertainment. But instead of being a gripping thriller, it falls into the predictable mold and proves unmemorable.
