ARBITRAGE: forget the title, feel the tension

Wall Street bankers and their ilk are rapidly becoming Hollywood's default bad guys. It's not surprisingly really given the financial misery they've inflicted on millions since 2008.
The latest incarnation of amorality and greed on two legs is Robert Miller.

He's a ultra-wealthy hedge-fund manager up to his neck in the brown smelly stuff.
And it's a situation entirely of his own making.
He's trying to sell his company before the buyers discover a 4 hundred million dollar hole in his accounts.
He's also trying to keep the financial quagmire a secret from his family.
And he's trying to placate his increasingly resentful and frustrated mistress who wants more of his time than he feels able to give. 
Despite the challenge, Miller's proving successful at keeping his head above the far less appealing equivalent of water until the fateful night when he falls asleep at the wheel.
For those who believe that those with money and influence have been getting away with it for too long, what happens next makes for sweet revenge.
It also makes for compulsive viewing.
Where 2011's 'Margin Call' focused on the complexity of the financial deals that brought about the crash of '08 and required close attention to follow what was happening, ARBITRAGE uses the world of high finance as the backdrop to a more traditional style of thriller. The focus here is less on the detail of the monetary shenanigans and more on the man at the centre of them.
As played by Richard Gere, Miller is outwardly a pillar of Manhattan respectability. He's just made the cover of Forbes as a shining example of hedge-fund smarts, and he and wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) are generous patrons of various charitable causes. Miller's smooth, sophisticated and keeps his iron business fist buried deep inside an alluring velvet glove.
There's been much chatter about Gere's performance being Oscar-nomination and while it's true that he is totally convincing in the part and absolutely holds our attention whenever he's on screen, I'm less sure that what he does rises to the level of Oscar-worthy. He didn't blow me away like George Clooney did in 'Michael Clayton.'
Perhaps the problem is that Gere makes it all look so effortless. He doesn't simply play Robert Miller, he is Miller. He is a character we can believe exists outside of the confines of the movie. He had a life before the events depicted here and will continue living after we take our leave of him.

What is indisputable is that ARBITRAGE is Gere's film. There's strong support from Sarandon, Brit Marling (as Miller's grown-up daughter and chief financial officer at his company), Nate Parker (as a young man whom Miller helps and uses without understanding how the two are mutually incompatible) and Tim Roth as an NYC detective - with a decidedly dodgy American accent - on a mission to bring Miller to justice, but it's Gere who dominates.
Much credit is also due to writer-director Nicholas Jarecki who has created a powerful, tense and compelling story which is nowhere near as predictable as one might expect given the subject matter.  It really does keep you guessing to the very end and, unlike 'Michael Clayton',  the plot is as strong as the performances.
Do not be dissuaded by the title (which, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary means "the nearly simultaneous purchase and sale of securities or foreign exchange in different markets in order to profit from price discrepancies"). An MBA is not required to appreciate this impressive thriller.