Review of Arbitrage (2012) by Dawdlingpoet — 27 Nov 2021

This is a finance related drama film, with themes covered including accidental death, blackmail and white collar crime. The first thought I had about this film was that its about a family man, a caring person who is clearly also motivated by money and, thus, greed - how can you be both? hmmm...how original, a moral tale of our times(!). It did seem like a relatively bland film but then a pivotal plot twist happens and I found myself more interested to see what happened to Robert, what his reaction would be. The saying 'the truth will out' is quite key in relation to this film, I feel. However, what that entails isn't necessarily as obvious as you may think.

Cast wise, Robert Miller is played by Richard Gere. He depicts Robert as quite a vulnerable person shortly after a certain turn of events - he loses his cocky and self assured veneer, certainly in the short term. It is very much a film which makes you wonder quite how you'd react if you were in his shoes - I'm not convinced I can say I found Robert to be an especially appealing person as such but his performance seemed alright. He certainly seems like quite a slippery type of a figure at times, sometimes quite human and other times much more the opposite (which is to say a smooth talker, or ultimately worried about himself getting in to trouble or losing some of his mass wealth(!)). Other cast members include Susan Sarandon as his partner, Ellen and Tim Roth as the cop in charge of a case involving Robert - detective Michael Bryer. He suits the role well, as he both looks and sounds the part of a NYPD detective. I'm not entirely sure I can explain precisely why but I felt he did anyway.

As a character focussed drama, its alright. I suppose its true what people say about one person owning many masks (metaphorically speaking), which is well depicted here. I quite liked Tim Roths character, how he tried to get under Roberts skin (again figuratively speaking, of course!) and I found myself wondering quite how things would play out, which is a good sign. It is, I suppose, a reasonably watchable film but the plot is a bit slow and it won't appeal to everyone, especially if character driven dramas and, more specifically, those about not entirely endearing people, aren't your proverbial 'bag'.

Content wise, the film contains sex references and partial nudity but nothing especially graphic. There are some scenes depicting drug use, with a character shown taking cocaine being one example. There are also some violent scenes, mostly confined to one scene fairly early on in the plot - a bloody wound is shown and Roberts various bruise marks are shown as well. There is also quite a lot of strong language used. Otherwise, there are scenes featuring characters threatening one another but otherwise not a great amount of content especially likely to upset or frighten people. The tone of the film in general is somewhat unsettling, questioning perhaps in terms of the morality of the main character but I wouldn't have thought people would find it especially visually disturbing. It carries a 15 rating in the UK, due to this.

I'm not sure that I'd specifically recommend this film, as I feel there are other films covering similar themes that are a bit less bland and maybe a little more thought provoking. The main character being a less than especially impressive man made me less than overly keen on it, although it was quite a watchable film (perhaps surprisingly so) and one or two of the other characters somewhat made up for that perhaps. Overall, I'd say look around for a better alternative to this film, as im pretty sure there are a good few out there.