Richard Gere

  • Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)

    Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2015) I’m not a big dog person, but Hachi still managed to reach me twice as often as I thought.  The story of a dog who comes to wait eternally for his dead master, Hachi hits high notes at the beginning of the story (when a preposterously cute puppy dog gets a lot of screen time) and at the end, as the years go on and the dog stands for permanence in a forever-changing world.  It is, very obviously, a film made with obviously mawkish intent: it pulls no punches in trying to get tears out of its audience, and milks every single dramatic detail (such as the squeezable ball) to its fullest.  But, especially after a slow first half, it picks up and gets far more interesting than expected later on.  Richard Gere isn’t bad as the lead human character, an academic who ends up with a lot more than he expected when a dog randomly pops into his path.  Still, this is the dog’s film and everyone knows it.  For a movie that was apparently never widely shown in North-American theaters, Hachi has since acquired a minor but entirely well-deserved notoriety.  Dog people should truly brace themselves for sobs, though.

  • Arbitrage (2012)

    Arbitrage (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On-demand Video, December 2012) Richard Gere turns in one of his best performances in recent memory here as a rich businessman with problems that grow bigger as the film advances: a mistress that gets killed, a bad investment that turns into fraud, tense family relationship that combust as everything else goes on.  As a concept, Arbitrage is neither original nor gripping: we’ve seen this material countless times before.  The twists and turns are familiar until the cynical ending, but even that seems ordinary in a world used to Wall Street duplicity.  Still, the film itself is competently made, there are modest thrills in the details of the story and not enough good things can be said about Gere’s performance as a man able of the best as well as the worst.  Despite the familiar subject matter, Arbitrage becomes compelling viewing: We can’t wait to see Gere either get his punishment or his escape, and this conflicted character study is probably the film’s chief appeal.  Plus, it all takes place in the pleasant upper-crust of New Yrok City, offering another chance to live vicariously in an upper-class playground: Arbitrage also works well as an acid reminder that the rules don’t really apply the same way to the rich as they do to the poor: money can buy almost anything, including virtue. 

  • Brooklyn’s Finest (2009)

    Brooklyn’s Finest (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, March 2010) Brooklyn’s Finest is a profoundly ironic title, but there’s little sly humour in the rest of this deliberately gritty and down-beat police drama that follows three variously-corrupted Brooklyn policemen.  This isn’t director Antoine Fuqua’s first corrupt cop drama (remember Training Day?), nor the first corrupt cop drama in recent memory (Dark Blue?  Street Kings?  Pride and Glory?  Righteous Kill?), so viewers may be spared a sentiment of déjà-vu.  Where this film distinguishes itself is in structure: The three stories rarely intersect, except for a bit of tragic cross-fire at the very end.  In the meantime, we get Richard Gere (far too proud and well-coiffed for his own role) as a disillusioned veteran marking down his last days, the always-fantastic Don Cheadle as an undercover informant with stronger ties to criminals than his own superiors, and Ethan Hawke as an overwhelmed father-of-many who resorts to stealing drug money in order to supplement his pay check.  Brooklyn’s Finest has a patina of unpleasantness that is supposed to transmute into authentic grittiness, but this illusion doesn’t sustain the steadily-increasing body-count as criminals are gunned down in police raids by the dozen.  Few of the film’s characters can be expected to live until the credits.  This sombre tone, alas, creates expectations that the unfocused, moralistic ending can’t match: Since this isn’t a popcorn picture, we look in vain for a deeper message and a stronger conclusion than a final hail of bullets.  The script, while interesting throughout, fails to cohere in its third act and the result is a mild disappointment.  Like many of its corrupted-blue brethren, Brooklyn’s Finest will be another forgettable DVD in the crime section; adequate to satisfy those looking for that kind of film, and insignificant for everyone else.

  • Dr. T & the Women (2000)

    Dr. T & the Women (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) This might be a rather impressive misfire, but at least Dr. T & the Women can boast one of the most descriptive title of the year. There’s the plot in a nutshell, how a gynaecologist (Richard Gere, in a fairly good role) deals with the woman in both his professional and personal lives. I’m not sure if the screenwriter actually lives on this planet (Woman looking forward to their visit to the gynecologist? I’m no expert on the subject, but that’s news to me.) but it’s clear that s/he’s got no skill writing comedy: Despite the potential of the film’s elements, it falls singularly short of exploiting its own quirkiness. (At one point, I kept hoping for Dr. T. to say “My wife’s a nut, my sister-in-law’s an alcoholic, my lesbian daughter is getting married to a guy, my secretary’s hitting on me and the most normal member of my family is a conspiracy theorist!”) lot of missed opportunities, slow pacing, implausible situations (even for a Robert Altman film) and a truly awful ending which doesn’t resolve anything. But don’t think that I didn’t enjoy the film, flaws and all. The star-studded cast is impressive in itself, there’s some welcome female nudity and if you don’t know the ending you can kid yourself in being interested in how worse the plot threads can get for the intrepid Dr. T. Kudos to my sister for uncovering a subtle interpretation of the film, as she maintains that it’s Dr. T. himself who’s responsible for the nuttiness of the women around him. All in all, a film that’s worthwhile almost despite itself.