EQUITY: a juicy, intense Wall Street melodrama that highlights... women!

Of course there are high-ranking women on Wall Street and in the banking industry -- just as there are behind the camera in Hollywood. It's just that, compared to their male counterparts, there are damned few. Which is one of several reasons why EQUITY, yet another in the ever-expanding genre of high-finance/double dealing films, is worth seeing. What makes this movie special is that both in front of and behind the camera, women are foremost -- from the actors to director, writer, and especially as the primary characters in this film. Not only are the key players who move the plot forward mostly women, the "compliance" investigator and even the primary "hacker" are, too!

All this brings additional frisson to an already nicely loaded plot involving an about-to-break IPO, the woman in charge of which (Naomie, played by Anna Gunn, above), is still recuperating from an earlier IPO that didn't roll out so well. So she is hugely determined to see that this one succeeds. Helping her do that job is her talented but under-appreciated assistant (Sarah Megan Thomas, below), along with her runs-hot-and-cold boss (Lee Tergesen) and her big-shot boyfriend (the perfectly cast, can-anyone-ever-trust-this-guy? James Purefoy.

Using her wiles to try to bring to justice that insider-trading boyfriend, along with his cohorts, is a "compliance" investigator (played by Alysia Reiner, below, of Orange Is the New Black). All of this has our poor Naomie scrambling to make sure her IPO comes to fruition on track.

As directed by a woman new to my purview, Meera Menon (below), with a screenplay by Amy Fox (from a story by Ms Fox, Ms Thomas and Ms Reiner), the movie is written, filmed and edited (Andrew Hafitz) with economy and smarts. We can follow the ins-and-out of it all but are not beaten about the head as it drives its points and themes home.

Even though the final scene repeats verbatim a viewpoint we've heard earlier in the film, the particular character from whom this verbiage now spews makes its own awful point about how we keep putting the foxes in charge of our hen-houses. It ain't illegal, but it sure as hell ought to be. Still, Equity is pointed and fun, moving fast and concisely toward its goal. And though its stance may be feminist by virtue of most of the major characters being women, you finally find yourself (and properly so) rooting for just about no one at all. The sleaze quotient is simply to high to make that possible. These people deserve each other -- although the American economy and us taxpayers deserves a lot better.

TrustMovies had hoped that the filmmakers would, at the end, give us a look at those revealing photos of the obnoxious co-owner of the IPO that he had put online as bait to prove that his new social-network-with-complete-privacy could not be hacked. Alas, we don't get that little extra delight. But the movie offers plenty of others along the way.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running a sleek 100 minutes, Equity opens here in South Florida today -- in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood 16 and The Living Room Theaters; at the Movies of Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth; and in the Miami area at the Regal South Beach 18, and the AMC's Aventura 24 and Sunset Place 24. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates cities and theaters nationwide.

Stop and Frisk? Really? Who's stopping and frisking Wall Street & our sleazy banking system?

Yes, yes: I know it's not a movie, but maybe someone'll grab the idea and run with it. All this hoo-haw about stop and frisk and whether or not it's constitutional -- when all along we've been stopping and frisking the wrong guys. Whenever anyone mentions crime, the very first thing that ought to come to mind is: Wall Street and the banks. That's the really unconscionable and still-unpunished crime of our post-millennium (aside from the Bush regime's illegal war, of course).

Instead, at the dropping of the "C word, the first thing out of anyone's mouth is some neighborhood in Brooklyn or the Bronx. Witness the ridiculous interview that New York magazine ran with Mayor Bloomberg last month. At the mention of crime, sho 'nuff, back we go to the neighborhoods and all that puny, individual stuff. And the interviewer, as ever, didn't even raise an eyebrow, as though that was the only kind of crime anybody cares about. Our mayor should be run out of town on a rail for fomenting this kind of shit. Will Bill de Blasio be any different, really? We shall see.

So the next time you hear anybody mention crime, immediately chime in with "You mean Wall Street and the banks, right?" And if Stop and Frisk comes up, tell 'em who it is that actually needs to be stopped and frisked. Don't let the powers-that-be get away with this fakery over and over and over again. Start stopping and frisking the more important criminals now, via some genuine oversight of Wall Street and the banking system -- and just like the Mayor and the Police Department insist, "We'll catch 'em for the small stuff -- and that'll help prevent the big stuff."

I'll be back with more movies tomorrow.

Richard Gere gives his best shot in Nicholas Jarecki's smart and slippery ARBITRAGE

Forget the pompous pretensions of Cosmopolis. If you can stand to view only one movie this year about yet another sleazy Wall Street wheeler/dealer, make it the slick, smart melodrama, ARBITRAGE. Written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki in a tight, straight-forward fashion that serves his story well, this film pretty much cinches the Jarecki clan's standing among the most illustrious of today's movie-makers.

Brother Eugene Jarecki gave us one of the most important of modern documentaries, Why We Fight, while other brother Andrew Jarecki offered the uber-divisive doc Capturing the Friedmans and followed it up with the dark narrative film, All Good Things. This is one talented family, and young Nicholas, shown at left, proves no piker in the mix.

What makes this film works so extraordinarily well is the enormous amount of tension created by Mr. Jarecki (the filmmaker is shown at left) via his straight-ahead tech-nique that makes use of numerous quick, deft strokes involving incident and character, coupled to the terrific performance given by Richard Gere (on poster, top, and below), in the leading role of a super-successful hedge-fund magnate named Robert Miller.

This tension is palpable and it merely increases in larger and larger increments as the movie progresses, becoming a kind of suspense thriller, one that is quite literally as suspenseful and thrilling as any movie this year -- for those of us, at least, who can get our thrills from things other than throat slashings and car chases.

What is particularly remarkable about this movie is how cleverly Gere and Jarecki woo us into somehow rooting for Robert Miller, despite the fact that we know he's a crook, a sleazebag, a womanizer (that's his mistress, played by the French/Corsican actress Laetitia Casta, above) and probably a major despoiler, too. It's clear that Miller's entire world is collapsing around him; even so, he remains smart, attuned and ever-ready to make the necessary decision -- and pounce.

Gere is by now such a seasoned actor that he knows never to beg for sympathy. Yet because the filmmaker and his star place us so far inside this man's mind and feelings, we understand and appreciate his now-tenuous hold on his domain. We're privy to how this guy gets not just our sympathy but that of (well, most of) the rest of the film's characters, too. (One not so full of sympathy is the smart detective, played by Tim Roth, above.)

These satellites/sympathizers include Miller's beautiful wife (Susan Sarandon, above, and consummate as ever) and his intelligent and attractive daughter (Britt Marling, below, and much more impressive here than in Another Earth).

Also on hand is an old friend who is oddly much younger than Miller, the full identity of whom becomes apparent only as the movie progresses. Played quite well by Nate Parker, shown below, this character is pivotal in a number of ways.

For a time it seems as if our tale is about a fellow who, in almost every way, is a fake, and may be about to begin coming to terms with his fakery. To Jarecki's credit, things are more complicated than that. When, by the film's finale, justice of a sort has been meted out, things have changed almost totally from what they were, even as they remain the same. This is, I would suggest, how it usually goes for our country's, our world's, high rollers. But maybe not in the lip-smacking, deliciously perverse and entertaining manner we've enjoyed here.

The entire cast is crackerjack and is made excellent use of by Jarecki. Look for Graydon Carter in a small but exquisite role, in which he is so very good that I see a whole new career on the horizon, should Mr. Carter opt for it.

Arbitrage, from Roadside Attractions, opens across some 38 states in an enormous amount of theaters (for a "limited" release) this Friday, September 14. Here in New York City, it will play at  the Angelika, Clearview's 1st and 62nd and Chelsea cinemas, and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. To see all states, cities and theaters, simply click here. Oh, yes -- this film is simultaneously being shown via VOD.

Half a haircut: Cronenberg's COSMOPOLIS demonstrates to a T the 3 P's of "art" films

You don't know the three P's? You will after you've seen a pile of glossy garbage called COSMOPOLIS: Pompous, Pretentious, Pointless. TrustMovies had to miss an earlier showing of this film and so attended its special opening day screening this past Friday, followed by a Q&A with David Cronenberg, the film's director and adapter (of the novel by Dom DeLillo) at the Walter Reade Theater of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (The movie is having its official NYC theatrical release just across the street in the not-enough-leg-room-for-tall-people Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, as well as at the more comfortable Landmark Sunshine Cinema.)

TM never misses a Cronenberg movie (the filmmaker is shown at left), even though he consistently runs hot and cold to them: loved A Dangerous Method; found the ending of Eastern Promises ridiculously unbelievable and melodramatic; for all the good in A History of Violence, the man couldn't direct a believable shoot-out action sequence to save his life; thought Naked Lunch was brilliant, his best and, in fact, one of the best adaptations-to-film ever, working on every level. And so on.

I have read only two of DeLillo's novel (Players and White Noise), did not enjoy or find either one edifying, and so was not expecting to be blown away. From what I hear, Cronenberg has been quite faithful to his source. The movie is set in New York City, in the environs of Wall Street, and tells the tale of a more-or-less current Master of the Universe named Packer (played by Robert Pattinson, above) having a very bad day, financially, if not sexually/medically. If only he could relax and enjoy that rectal exam....

Perhaps half of this movie takes place in our "hero's" white stretch limo (including the rectal exam), and the filmmaker sees to it that we're inside this confined space without feeling unduly cramped or claustrophobic. He also occasionally surprises us with what the limo contains (the scene of Pattinson peeing is a perfect example). Outside the limo all hell is breaking loose: The "President" is in town, and there are protests going on all around. But Packer wants to get a haircut and so demands that his "security" and driver take him to his special barber (shown at bottom).

Along the route various folk climb in and out of the lino, most of whom -- those who are not servicing him sexually, that is -- are connected with Packer in some business way. Look! There's Jay Baruchel and Juliette Binoche (shown two photos above). Now comes Emily Hampshire and Samantha Morton. Later, and best of all, are Mathieu Amalric (above, being molested by the very fine Kevin Durand, of Citizen Gangster) and, in his own non-limo space, Paul Giamatti, below, who provides the film's one real bit of characterization, and, as you might expect from Mr. Giamatti, it's a lulu, though too little, too late.

None of these people -- given the dialog they're given --  provide much character, but then DeLillo is not big on this; his people tend to sound, if not act, quite alike. Their dialog runs to arch and archer. Occasionally this provides a laugh, but even those seem awfully second-hand. And how often, I wonder, must we hear the prostate "joke"? Let me count the toll.

Does this movie have anything remotely new or interesting to say? I don't think so. Money and power corrupt. The life of Wall Street is dank, empty and unsatisfying (except for maybe the money). The past does indeed impact us. Few understand the jargon and number-crunching that goes on in this banking business. And we all need to be saved. That's about it. But if you've ever wanted to spend lots of time inside a stretch limo, here's the movie for you.

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TM had all good intentions of staying for the Q&A, but Cosmopolis left him in the foulest mood he's sustained so far this year, and so he just wanted to go home and kick the dog. Upon sight of the closing credits, he beat a hasty retreat from the theater and onto the subway. Fortunately, he doesn't have a dog.

Julio DePietro's THE GOOD GUY opens; Bledel/Porter/Greenberg star

Can a movie with absolutely nothing new to show and tell still entertain us properly?  On the basis of Julio DePietro's THE GOOD GUY: Yes, it can.  Telling the oldest of old stories about a gal who must choose the right guy (between two who look awfully good), the movie perks along on maybe four cylinders (it is an independent film), with DePietro (shown pointing, below) handling hackneyed material as though it were fresh and new.  For the 90-minute running time, it is.

The Good Guy is an object lesson in how to take used material and come up with a small winner -- via swift, smart direction; clever, amusing, up-to-the-minute vernacular dialog; and a bevy of young performers who "get it" and are more than happy to give it back.  That this is Mr. DePietro's first film is shocking enough; that he does not go for the big stuff or the singular, never-seen-it-before moment is even better.  He seems happy to remain within the confines of romantic comedy, while serving up a sophisticated film for our still-new, Oh-Oh decade.

Perhaps it's DiPietro's familiarity with other areas of filmmaking that have helped bring him to this point:  He was executive producer of Disgrace (TrustMovies' choice for last year's best film) and Manda Bala (Send a Bullet: one of 2007's better documentaries).  Whatever -- he and his cast have pulled off something good.  Further, the filmmaker's choice of a generally-sleazy Wall Street and its crowd as his milieu is, shall we say, timely.

That cast, by the way, includes Alexis Bledel, shown at right, two photos up (of Gilmore Girls fame, who's made a bunch of interesting movies, beginning with the under-appreciated Tuck Everlasting and including I'm Reed Fish) as the heroine.  Competing for the title role are Bryan Greenberg (shown above, who was so good in Prime) and Scott Porter (shown at left, two photos up). In the strong supporting cast are Anna Chlumsky, Aaron Woo and Jessalyn Wanlim, and -- for the older generation -- Andrew McCarthy (below), Eric Thal and Trini Alvarado!

No need to oversell this little movie: one that is certainly worth seeing, particularly if you've an affinity for romantic comedy and any of those cast members.  Opening via Roadside Attractions, The Good Guy is -- surprisingly -- getting a better-than-average independent film release: opening on Friday, February 19, in New York City at four -- count 'em -- theaters, and four more in Los Angeles.  Chicago and Boston follow on March 5.  You can find cities, theaters and dates here.