Richard Gere was offered the role of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" and turned it down, a decision he "always regretted" as he said at a Tokyo press conference some years ago. Now he's landed a role to vindicate that regret, in slow-burning thriller "Arbitrage," which stars Gere as Wall Street hedge-fund magnate Robert Miller.
Miller is more vulnerable than Gekko, and as writer/director Nicholas Jarecki draws him, he's not a whole lot smarter. But when you imagine Miller as one of the guys who took down the global economy in 2008, he immediately begins to shine with realism. The man is arrogant, unscrupulous and so out for his own skin that he's become blind to everything and everyone.
Gere doesn't do much to make Miller a likeable guy: He seems to relish portraying the successful financier as a despicable old lout. He has it all: a hedge-fund firm with a stellar reputation on the brink of a lucrative merger. His wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) is beautiful and nice, while his gorgeous daughter Brooke (Brit Marling) happens to be his business partner. Nothing mars the incredibly expensive veneer of Miller's 1-percent lifestyle, except for a teensy snag concerning some books he's cooked, and a bit of illegal fraud activity on the side. At his 60th birthday party, Miller fittingly announces it's not about the money anymore, but his grandchildren. Yeah, right.