UNCUT GEMS

The Safdie Brothers have made the best film of the year though you probably won't feel comfortable watching it. Not since the heyday of Robert Altman have so many characters moved so swiftly across the screen, not just talking, but shouting over each other. "Uncut Gems" is an uncut gem of a movie about one of life, and cinema's, greatest losers and it gives Adam Sandler the role of a lifetime. Of course, his performance in "Punch Drunk Love" hinted at just how good Sandler could be but I don't think anyone was quite prepared for this. This is his De Niro/Pacino/Brando moment, you might say all rolled into one and in a year of great performances by male actors, (Driver, Phoenix, Banderas), surely makes him the front runner in the Oscar race.

In this movie Sandler is Howard Ratner, a scummy New York gems dealer with a gambling addiction, a mistress and up to his oxters in debt to some very unsavoury and violent characters but who still believes his fortune is to be made from a rare, African opal that comes his way and which he hopes to sell to the NBA player Kevin Garnett, playing himself. Of course, he may as well believe in fairies for Howard is the kind of man whose days never go right and whose very existence seems as precarious as walking down the middle of a freeway in heavy traffic.

With this film the Safdie Brothers don't deviate too much from the smaller, independent films they've been making up to now. The milieu is the same and so are the characters but this feels more fully formed. This is the mother-lode; this time they've hit pay dirt. With a pulsating Daniel Lopatin score that propels the film along you sweat and squirm with Howard through every terrible, beautiful moment. As well as the agony of watching a man implode before your eyes there's the pleasure of seeing an actor at the very top of his game. The last twenty minutes or so of the film are almost unbearable as Howard puts everything on hold for the gamble of a lifetime. I came away from this movie totally shattered. The Safdies and Sandler have finally arrived.