Review of Arbitrage (2012) by Stephen E — 13 Aug 2013

Good movie headed by an excellent performance from Richard Gere as this man who's struggling to keep up the appearance he's built up over the years. I think Richard does a great job as this man who's navigating every avenue available to him, whether morally correct or not, to make sure that the level of the fraud he has perpetrated be kept secret so as to not ruin his family.

Richard Gere is great but, somehow, the movie isn't. I can't exactly put my finger on why the movie isn't as great as Gere is. Maybe it's the story feels a little detached, I am not really that invested in much of what the movie is offering.

Not that I didn't care, but I had problems with the story. It does have its plot holes, but a lot of great movies have plot holes so that's not really a problem as long as the storytelling is dramatically effective.

I think it's the fact that everything that happens that's not directly related to Robert, then again almost everything in a way connects back to him, feels uninspired. For example, whenever there's a long stretch of time when Gere is not around, that's when the movie sort of loses its momentum.

And that's a problem. Thankfully, Gere delivers a confident and charismatic performance. And the character is great, it's a strong character study. It's just a shame that the 'sub-plots', if you will, are so uninspired because it does drag the movie down and makes it only slightly worse than I was expecting.

Still this is a good movie, one that has its problems but Richard Gere makes the movie worth sitting through.