Arbitrage

A billionaire hedge-fund manager (Richard Gere), scrambling to sell his firm before his embezzlement is discovered, crashes his Mercedes, killing his mistress (Laetitia Casta); now he must juggle a second cover-up while a dogged cop (Tim Roth) sniffs around. Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki builds a tightly written, sharply acted melodrama with a Tiffany gleam. Only trouble is, nearly every character is an amoral, bottom-feeding snake; the only decent people in sight are Gere’s daughter (Brit Marling) and the son of his former driver (Nate Parker), and they’re decidedly small potatoes. With nobody to root for—we don’t care what happens to most of these bastards—it’s hard to muster more than mild curiosity about the outcome. Still, Jarecki’s sheer craftsmanship is undeniable and refreshing.