Financial turmoil is a hot topic in the world at the moment as the big economies try to drag themselves out of recession and the movie industry has suddenly sprung a number of films based around financial meltdowns including Margin Call and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In the case of Arbitrage it's slightly different as the meltdown of Robert Miller's (Richard Gere) hedge fund takes a back-seat for large parts of the movie as he deals with the fact he left the scene of an accident where his mistress (Laetitia Casta) was killed when he fell asleep at the wheel.
For years Miller cooked the books at his hedge fund to escape a $400 million loss due to a failed investment so his hoping to sell his company to recoup the losses and avoid being arrested for fraud whilst avoiding the rap for involuntary manslaughter as he is pursued vigorously by Detective Bryer (Tim Roth, star performer). The manslaughter story doesn't add a whole lot to the film, it's just a side show that takes over the core story of the film to pad out time.
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| Robert Miller (Gere) with his daughter Brooke (Brit Marling) who also works for him |
Richard Gere is generally someone I despise which made him ideal for playing billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Miller who is rather stereotypically a man only out for himself, at no point does he really consider anyone else. The film's central theme is corruption which is at the heart of everyone's motives out of the key characters, everyone is willing to bend the rules for their own benefit.
2/4 Often distracted plot interlinks two stories that don't successfully meet.
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