Uncut Gems
Darkly comedic character study about a sleazy New York jeweller and gambling addict portrayed by hack comedian Adam Sandler, of all people. To give the guy some credit, he has demonstrated some skill as an actor in the past, mainly in P.T. Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, but I will say, I never assumed he had the kind of performance he gave for Uncut Gems in him. Protagonist Howard Ratner is a scumbag, unambiguously so, and the movie never exactly asks us to have sympathy with him. That being said, despite focussing almost exclusively on a profoundly unlikeable character whose supporting cast mainly consists of other profoundly unlikeable characters, Uncut Gems is still an extremely engaging movie.
At its core it's a classic New York gangster flick, not too dissimilar to some of the works of Martin Scorsese, who has a producer credit on Uncut Gems. Ratner is a small time sleazebag getting in over his head, betting with money that's not his and constantly digging himself deeper into a mess he's increasingly unlikely to get himself out of. Directors Josh and Ben Safdie show great skill when it comes to conveying the constantly rising tension of Ratner's gamble, the movie is almost constantly hectic, loud and overwhelming, conveying, if nothing else, that this guy is balancing on the edge of cliff and it sure is getting windy.
Sandler's joined by ex basketballer Kevin Garnett, playing himself, as an unreliable client of his, Idina Menzel as his wife and Julia Fox as his Mistress. They're a neurotic bunch. There is a darkly satirical edge to the Safdie's portrayal of NYC and its people. It's a petri dish of unrelenting tension and anxiety that can escalate into violence at any given moment, and it frequently does.
Uncut Gems is an extremely entertaining gangster movie, with a very classical structure to it. The struggle of a guy in over his head who can't help raising the stakes, even when the odds are against him. It's characters are all easily dislikeable and you won't be so much rooting for its protagonist as anxiously waiting for him to finally get into a situation he can't weasel himself out of. That being said, between Sandler's convincingly slimy performance and the effortlessly tense presentation, Uncut Gems is an extremely entertaining watch and a more than wortwhile contribution to that subgenre about cutthroats trying to survive in New York.