Fridae

Film historians of the future may come to the conclusion that the Great Recession of the 21st Century gave rise to a new film genre — the Wall Street crime procedural. Taking their genre sensibilities from film noir and television cop shows. Narratively, such a move sets aside the old attitude that white collar crime is the crime that civilised people don't talk about, that white collar criminals who lie, cheat and steal money are somehow better than violent criminals who hurt and kill, and therefore are deserving of better treatment in the telling of their misdeeds. Where previously, tales of white collar K-street and Wall Street criminals tended towards the morality play or cautionary tales about great men gone wrong, the procedural treats these crooks as any other crook.

Our crook in Arbitrage is billionaire hedge fund owner and manager Robert Miller, played by the ever-charming Richard Gere. He's trying to sell off his hedge fund, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, to an unsuspecting corporate raider while he's cheating on his wife. It might as well be just another day in the unspectacular life of a Wall Street man trying to keep all the balls in the air, and successfully keeping all the balls in the air — except there's a chance everything might come crashing down as the police come knocking on the door to investigate the mysterious death of his mistress, a death which he causes and covers up when the film barely begins.

As a procedural, the camera follows Miller as he cuts deal after deal, calls in favours, lies and cheats and intimidates everyone he can in order to outsmart the crafty police investigator (Tim Roth as a dodgy detective who has dirty tricks of his own), his suspicious wife (Susan Sarandon, as the trophy wife that a Wall Street crook deserves), and a protégé who is close to figuring out the bankruptcy of the fund. He's on top of everything even while we're rooting for him to lose everything.

Arbitrage offers no easy catharsis to the outrage over the ongoing financial crisis and widespread anger at Wall Street's bankers. One can imagine Arbitrage remade as an excellent, albeit more conventional television serial in the near future but it is perfect as a character study and procedural genre piece. And surely, this is the best role Richard Gere has played in his career.