Flight; Trouble With The Curve; Arbitrage

Flight
Directed by Robert Zemeckis

It's really nice to see Denzel Washington playing an actual character again. In Flight, we see him taking on a role I didn't think I'd see from him: a character with true conflict. I didn't know if I was rooting for, or against him. As a character/performance piece, this is an excellent movie, however it falls flat in other ways that make it hard for me to appreciate it as much as I feel I should. The obvious musical cues and elongated ending, for starters, distracted me from what I feel could have been one of the better movies of the year. Still, this is definitely worth watching, even if just for Washington.

Trouble With The Curve
Directed by Robert Lorenz

And here I hoped Eastwood would have called it quits in acting with Gran Torino... Though his performance is everything you might expect it to be (he plays a crotchety old man), the material he is given to work with is often less-than compelling. Timberlake and Adams give solid supporting performances, but they're also saddled with a script that just doesn't allow for much. This is a solidly-made film with perfectly decent performances. It almost seems like a movie you could only enjoy if you are a fan of baseball. So being a fan of baseball, I probably enjoyed it more than most would. It could have been better, but it's inoffensive and charming enough for me not to complain.

Arbitrage
Directed by Nicholas Jarecki

I had no idea Richard Gere could be this good. A character performance not totally unlike Washington's in 'Flight', Gere plays that guy you don't know if you like or loathe. I had no clue if I wanted him to get away with it or get caught. Fantastically-written in many aspects, but lacking in other ways, this is the kind of movie I can easily admire, but not find particularly enthralling. This may not be the film's fault, per se, but I do think movies like this have trouble really getting to me, as there is no personal or emotional tie to get me involved in any way. I see it as something to study from the outside: interested in the events as they occur, but not totally drawn in. I wanted to see what would happen, but didn't really care when it did.