Uncut Gems (2019) - A Sizzling Exercise in Cinematic Restlessness

We are first introduced to Adam Sandler's wily, perpetually browbeaten New York jeweler Howard Ratner on the operating table during a seemingly routine colonoscopy. The doctor makes his way through Howard's insides, examining every inch in search of possible colon cancer, a condition that has ravaged Howard's family in the past, we later learn. The doc eventually stops at something abnormal, noting that biopsies need to be taken of whatever potentially malignant mass they've discovered.

Within the next two minutes of the Safdie brothers' breathlessly-paced Uncut Gems, the possibility of colon cancer is roughly the 15th thing on Howard's - and the audience's - mind.

Howard's life is a series of escalating complications, many of which he perpetrates on himself through his own self-destructive behavior as a stubbornly optimistic and unflinchingly ambitious gambling addict. He owes a lot of money to a lot of people - pretty much everybody in NYC's Diamond District, it seems - and his days as a slippery, Machiavellian schemer are starting to catch up with him. If he doesn't come up with the cash for his debts in short order, he may very well have placed his last bet.

Uncut Gems is a mesmerizing portrait of a desperate man doing everything in his power to stay alive in the perilous world of gambling debts and loan sharks. It plays like a 2-hour trainwreck, a seemingly neverending sequence of disastrous setbacks in Howard's efforts to get out from under the weight of his formidable financial obligations. It's dizzying. It's frustrating. And you don't dare take your eyes off of it for even a second. The Safdies do an incredible job of keeping the film pulsing along without it ever growing tedious. We feel the dire urgency of Howard's situation, and despite his corrupt and mendacious behavior, it's hard not to pull for his ultimate success. 

The miraculous sympathy we feel for the character stems largely from Adam Sandler's career-best performance, a performance on which the entire rest of the film is founded. Howard is simultaneously nauseating in his obstinate self-destruction and rather charming in his latent good-heartedness. We sense as the audience that there is a right-minded human being somewhere beneath all of the duplicity, a human being worth saving. Right up to the rolling of the credits, we want Howard to finally atone for his shortcomings, to finally get even with his debtors, and to perhaps find some semblance of peace and happiness.

In the end, however, we realize, subconsciously or not, that this can never be. Howard is not the type of person that embraces personal development and change when there is money to be made and bets to be placed otherwise. This is who he is. 

Uncut Gems was executive produced by the master of the crime drama himself, Martin Scorsese. Howard Ratner feels like a character ripped straight from the pages of a prototypical Scorsese screenplay, and his plight, his inescapable plunge into ruin and collapse, is as captivating as Henry Hill's rise and fall in Goodfellas (1990) or Travis Bickle's descent into madness in Taxi Driver (1976). The Safdie brothers have crafted a first-rate crime epic that is peers with these Scorsese classics.

I would be remiss not to discuss some of Sandler's running mates, who are similarly excellent in their supporting roles. Former Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett steps into the acting arena with confidence and obvious talent, and his performance as a fictionalized version of himself is really quite impressive, especially when you consider this was KG's first foray into acting. Julia Fox, another first-timer, is also exceptional as Howard's mistress. Idina Menzel and Lakeith Stanfield also do standout work as Howard's estranged wife and shifty business partner respectively. 

Ultimately, watching Uncut Gems is an exhausting experience. There always seems to be multiple people yelling at one another. Howard is always devising some half-baked scheme to multiply his money that will inevitably fail and leave him worse off. Nothing really seems to be going right for our principal characters at any moment. It's a thoroughly stressful movie. That tachycardia you'll be feeling is well-earned. It's a bracing creation that is well worth the hellish anxiety it puts you through.

If I were to put it simply as I conclude my thoughts on Uncut Gems, watching this film is like watching two incensed tightrope walkers screaming their lungs out at one another whilst suspended above a cluster of deadly spikes, all while an oncoming locomotive wails its horn warning them of their impending collision. Does that make you want to watch this movie? Because it should. 

A

If you enjoyed my review, please consider subscribing to the blog for notifications about new articles, and make sure to let your thoughts be known in the comments below!