After a succession of epic films including three hours of watching Cloud Atlas disappear up its own bottom — if you are going to disappear up your own bottom, at least make it snappy — along comes this crisp and confident thriller which demands you only appreciate it for what it is: a crisp and confident thriller.
It’s set in the vastly wealthy world of Bernie Madoff-style hedge funds but, although it could easily have slipped into some kind of essay about money being the root of all evil, or how the rich bastards who crashed the economy keep getting away with murder (perhaps literally, in this instance), this has other things on its mind, like keeping you gripped and entertained. In fact, Arbitrage is so slyly and craftily entertaining even though it probably doesn’t bear close scrutiny — there are more plot holes than you can shake a stick at, should you wish to shake a stick at plot holes — I didn’t much care. It wasn’t epic. It didn’t ask me to ponder the meaning of life. And it’s good.
Written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, this stars Richard Gere as Robert Miller, a silver fox of an investment titan whom we are introduced to on the eve of his 60th birthday. His life appears gilded, and if you get off on wealth porn, as I do, you’ll find it top-notch. The houses! The cars! The private jet! The suits! The servants! The hospital charity drive needs $2 million? I’ll just write the cheque! He also has a loving family in the form of a wife (Susan Sarandon) and a smart daughter (Brit Marling), who works with him, but we know he is duplicitous when he slips his own birthday party to visit his mistress (Laetitia Casta), a French beauty who feels neglected — ‘But I never zee you, Wobert’ — even though he has set her up as a gallerist and has installed her in an amazing apartment.
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