A Wall Street bigwig (Richard Gere) outwardly seems to have it made - billions of dollars, a doting wife (Susan Sarandon), a beautiful and ambitious daughter (Brit Marling) - but his life is quickly unraveling: a mega merger is needed to plug a major cash gap, but glitches keep preventing the deal from culminating and, more urgently, a tragic accident involving his mistress place him, and his friend's son (Nate Parker), in the sight line of the law. Nicholas Jarecki's "Arbitrage" meshes a lackluster family story with an extraordinary multifaceted crime story. Gere delivers a solid, though sometimes very odd, but never less than compelling performance as a man trying always to maintain his sleek veneer while scheming with types all throughout the criminal spectrum. The film is only unsuccessful, though not detrimentally, when it comes to personal drama with Sarandon being criminally underused and Marling a really poor and uninspiring conscious for the film. I must say that I was slightly disappointed, and a little shocked, in Tim Roth's ineffectual performance as an NYC detective. When it comes to the criminal aspects of this film, Jarecki tells a completely fascinating story, which is carred by, and through the less worthy parts, by Gere.
