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Thread: UNCUT GEMS with Adam Sandler, Julia Fox - frenetically flawed masterpiece

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    Default UNCUT GEMS with Adam Sandler, Julia Fox - frenetically flawed masterpiece

    Any gambler who has been in over his head, which means pretty much � any gambler, is sucked into the Safdie�s brothers� frenetically flawed masterpiece, Uncut Gems. And if gambling isn�t your bag, take a seat, fasten your seatbelts, and catch an inkling of what it might be like to be wildly in over your head. It�s one failed caper after another, as New York jeweler Howard Ratner, a mishmash of 47th Street Jewish stereotypes tossed in with all the degenerate pigeonholes of the worst gamblers, twists and shimmies from the clutches of one shylock to the next in an unending struggle to get back on top and out from under a vigorously growing mountain of gambling debt.

    We watch as the lead character, so in your face from the start that you don�t have time to decide whether you even like him, weasels his way from one failed caper to another, buying time with a constant flow of fake Rolexes that he shoves into the clutching palms of a steady stream of shylocks, each one more than anxious to exact his pound of flesh from our rapidly flailing reprobate.

    Separated but still living with his wife on Long Island, maintaining an apartment in the City with his hot girlfriend Julia who works for him at his jewelry store, Howard�s personal life is in as much disarray as his professional, but this time, he has managed to land a huge 3000 carat uncut opal, smuggled to him on the backs and at the blood expense of the Ethiopian miners he managed to bribe to land the gem to him hidden inside the belly of an ice packed raw fish.

    From the moment the movie hits the ground running we understand the world that Howard lives in � robbing Peter to pay Paul, looking for that big score that might leave him with enough to pay off everyone he owes, and presumably, move up and out from the crazy life that has penned him in.

    The uncut gem appears to have magical powers � driving professional basketball star Kevin Garnett to victory when he worships it like an idol, bad for Howard, who spends much of the movie chasing it and landing himself in further trouble as he pawns everything he can get his hands on in desperate attempts to lay more bets. Even when he wins � his bets are called before they are locked in, pulled at the last minute by his bookies who are following his every move.

    By the end, we are left as exhausted as Howard sells the gem finally to Garnett, making enough money to get himself out of debt, but deciding instead to lock down his shylocks yet again, and buy himself just enough time to have his girlfriend slip out with the blood money and put every last drop on a final ten to one wager that he hopes will launch him out and over the top of the massive mess he has made of his life.

    The movie�s stunning but practically predictable climax allows Howard to pull at last the big score that takes him cleanly to the other side of victory, but also, almost as predictably but stunningly confusing, is the bullet shot to his head that finally puts a stop to his madness, folding the movie up into its only possible logical conclusion, where Howard dies like he lived �putting it all on the line.

    What happens after Howard�s gone is almost an afterthought, as his girlfriend, who was the one who placed the bet for him, manages to make it out with the score barely one step ahead of the last circling entourage of loan sharks. (A sub final plot makes it seem like she had been taken for all the winnings, but finally we realize that she, at least, does make it out alive and with the loot.) Howard is left in a pool of blood in his own jewelry store, an odd Kevin Spacey-esque look on his face only partially masked by his tea shades, the murders probably locked inside the store�s double doors with no way out and a probably gun battle between them the likely result. As for us � the audience � we�re left with the exuberance of Julia�s making it out with the bags of cash, not realizing that her man behind the victory, is already gone.
    Last edited by MDawg; 05-07-2020 at 06:40 PM.

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