Adam Sandler gives a terrific, career-best performance as a Manhattan jeweller with a perilous gambling habit in a rollicking, high-energy thriller
This sensationally good
New York crime drama is rocket-fuelled with greed and crack-fumed with fear. It is directed by the Safdie brothers, Benny and Josh, who create something deliciously horrible, working with their longtime screenwriter-collaborator Ronald Bronstein. It conjures up the work of James Toback and John Cassavetes – and indeed early Martin Scorsese, who is an executive producer here. There is a consistency of purpose that their earlier film, Good Time, lacked. In its unforced, gripping, black-comic chaos, Uncut Gems resembles nothing so much as a super-violent, feature-length episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The Safdies have cast as their leading man Adam Sandler who gives a glorious, career-best turn as a fast-talking Manhattan diamond dealer called Howard Ratner (dare we hope for a cheeky reference to the
British jeweller Gerald?), sporting a black leather jacket, dark glasses, earrings and an ingratiating, unreliable grin. Sandler has been known for pretty crass comedies in the past, though polite broadsheet opinion traditionally makes an exception for his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love. For me, that was a bit overblown, and in any case Sandler is far better here.