Saturday, December 15, 2012
Arbitrage (2012)
Richard Gere is never
bolder/better than when he plays an amoral cockup with sins to hide and
a clock to beat. He is that and more in “Arbitage,” a timely thriller with Gere as a billionaire hedge fund manager who in one week sees a longtime financial
fraud shell game crumble and accidentally kills his mistress in a crash,
all while dodging police and his suspecting wife (Susan Sarandon). This is a 1
percenter who has been thieving and lying so long, the light of truth gets him sweating. But he knows the rigged system. That’s the twist in this ethics
quagmire: We see-saw between wanting this pig nailed and wanting him to escape
unharmed. Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki also takes an open shot at the real “takers”
in this land –- not the poor or African-Americans or Hispanics as Fox
News preaches, but the rich white Wall Street elite who own the banks.
The scene where Gere’s CEO cluelessly asks a young black man who he has drawn
into his scheme, “What’s an Applebee’s?” (The man wants to open a franchise),
exemplifies modern American values. Money is all. A-
Labels:
1 percent,
2012,
America,
Arbitrage,
banks,
elite,
ethics,
financial fraud,
Fox News,
murder,
Nicholas Jarecki,
politics,
rich,
Richard Gere,
Susan Sarandon,
takers,
thriller,
values,
Wall Street
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