Myles AronowitzRichard Gere and Brit Marling star in 'Arbitrage'.
The packed house at the Eccles Theater Saturday night for the world premiere of financial thriller Arbitrage shows the Sundance Film Festival crowd is hungry to find this year's Margin Call.
Nicholas Jarecki's tension-filled story of a billionaire hedge-fund manager (Richard Gere) who is defrauding his investors and risking his family life in a cat-and-mouse game with a demanding mistress, cops and Wall Street isn't on the same level as the superb Margin Call, a hit at last year's festival.
Silver fox Gere gets his teeth into the role of Robert Miller, who is up to his neck in illegal activity and may well drag his family down with him Bernie Madoff style — his daughter (Brit Marling) is his Chief Investment Officer and she has no idea what daddy is up to with their millions and her future. Susan Sarandon deserves more from the script as his maddenly understanding wife. Tim Roth colours outside the lines as a tough-guy detective and succeeds, despite some holes in the script.
But this is Gere's baby — a huge role that is already spurring some early awards talk around Park City. I'm not convinced it's as strong as all that, although he does a satisfying job of wriggling on a growing succession of hooks, his cool Wall Street facade slowly developing fatal cracks.
At a Q&A after the Saturday night screening, Gere was asked if Miller is the evil flip side of the financial whiz he played in 1990s Pretty Woman, who wooed Julia Roberts' hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character.
“Someone asked me about that tonight, and I almost forgot about the other character,” a smiling Gere replied. “This one is a reality-based film, the other one is not.”
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Nicholas Jarecki's tension-filled story of a billionaire hedge-fund manager (Richard Gere) who is defrauding his investors and risking his family life in a cat-and-mouse game with a demanding mistress, cops and Wall Street isn't on the same level as the superb Margin Call, a hit at last year's festival.
Silver fox Gere gets his teeth into the role of Robert Miller, who is up to his neck in illegal activity and may well drag his family down with him Bernie Madoff style — his daughter (Brit Marling) is his Chief Investment Officer and she has no idea what daddy is up to with their millions and her future. Susan Sarandon deserves more from the script as his maddenly understanding wife. Tim Roth colours outside the lines as a tough-guy detective and succeeds, despite some holes in the script.
But this is Gere's baby — a huge role that is already spurring some early awards talk around Park City. I'm not convinced it's as strong as all that, although he does a satisfying job of wriggling on a growing succession of hooks, his cool Wall Street facade slowly developing fatal cracks.
At a Q&A after the Saturday night screening, Gere was asked if Miller is the evil flip side of the financial whiz he played in 1990s Pretty Woman, who wooed Julia Roberts' hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character.
“Someone asked me about that tonight, and I almost forgot about the other character,” a smiling Gere replied. “This one is a reality-based film, the other one is not.”
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