Arbitrage REVIEW
“When I was a kid,” says Robert Miller (Richard Gere) “my
favorite teacher was Mr. James. Mr. James said world events all revolve around
five things. M - O - N - E - Y.”
Through the course of the film we discover that this may be so.
First of all, I am not a businessman and I don’t play one on TV. MY understanding of the term “arbitrage” is therefor and elemental one. The verb, “arbitrage” as I understand it means to make a deal that involves limiting risk by buying something and selling it almost immediately after. In theory, if you buy at a price lower than the price you can sell something, you make money without doing anything. Someone who is good at it knows when there is someone out there desperate to sell something at below its value and also knows there is someone out there who desperately wants to buy something so much they will pay more than it is actually worth. A talented trader has the ability to convince someone to sell low and buy high and for that reason they must be able to understand why people spend money and require money.
In Arbitrage, billionaire Wall Street investment mogul Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is at the center of numerous “deals.” The movie focuses on the various “deals that he has to negotiate, not simply on a business level but on the personal level of family as well. Money is involved in all of his deals with his business partners, employees, investors, and lovers but none of them are based entirely on money. None of the people he makes deals with makes the deal simply for the money. There is always something else they want, or something just beyond the money. In each of the deals he makes in his effort to stay out of jail, he has to offer money and something else. He has to hide his own desperation and exacerbate the desperation of the “buyer” somehow. “The more time that passes, the more lies get told,” his lawyer informs him. We see this to be the case in the unfolding of the plot.
The movie might make for an interesting case study in negotiation taking a slow motion replay look at how he negotiates with his mistress; with Mayfield, the man offering to buy his company; with his daughter after she discovers the way that he has been altering the books; with the young black man, Jimmy Grant, who bails him out of a jam at a crucial moment in the film.
“What you did is way beyond the money,” Miller says to Grant in expressing his appreciation with a two million dollar trust fund. “Nothing is beyond money for you, Robert,” Jimmy responds, “We both know that.” “Buy the truth and do not sell it” the book of Proverbs advises. Arbitrage advice for us all. Don’t look for any heroes in this movie. There are none.
Question for Comment: Have you ever sold something worth more than you sold it for? Or bought something worth less than you bought it for? How were you induced to make such a bad deal? What keeps you from doing so again?
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