Movie Review : Uncut Gems (2019)

When Uncut Gems was released in theaters last December, the internet got swept by a tidal wave of Adam Sandler revisionist history. He suddenly became a misunderstood genius. An elite performer who was tragically cast in mindless comedies for decades. Sandler’s performance became more important than the film itself. That’s because it IS more important than the film itself. Uncut Gems is one of these movies that isn’t greater than the sum of its parts. It is quite successful at certain things and a complete failure in other respects. It needed Sandler to turns heads.

Uncut Gems tells the story of Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a New York city jeweler crippled by a gambling debt to his brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian). Competitive and pathological, he plans to pay it off by selling an opal to Boston Celtics’ center Kevin Garnett (played by Kevin Garnett) via an auction. But Howard can’t keep himself in check around money. The opal is estimated to be worth less than he fist thought by the auction’s expert and he doesn’t accept the eventuality of making only a marginal profit off it. Because Howard’s a degenerate capitalist.

Here’s the thing about Uncut Gems that you need to know before going in. This movie aims to do one thing and one thing only: create scorching levels of narrative tension. Howard life is in a complete state of urgency for the entire 135 minutes. Arno’s goons are intimidating him, Kevin Garnett disappears with the opal, his wife is falling out of love while he’s fixing it and whenever he could relax a little and be himself, something dumb happens, like the door of his commerce malfunctioning during Garnett’s second visit. Tension is the entire point of Uncut Gems.

But it’s not a great story. Degenerate-gambler-refusing-to-split-with-the-money-he-owes is a trope you’ve most likely seen before. While the Safdie brothers don’t even try to make you like Howard, it’s hard not to feel tricked by scenes like the malfunctioning door. Everything is designed to keep you in the urgency of the moment, which you’ll either love or hate. Uncut Gems has nothing to say about the nature of capitalism or greed except maybe that it’s pretty stressful and it’ll fucking ruin your life. Two things that you’ve most likely already learned from other movies.

What about the Adam Sandler performance? It’s good… but he’s not exactly camping a difficult or complex character. Howard Ratner’s pretty much a stereotypical greedy Jewish character, except perhaps for the fact that he loves basketball. This is the only original thing about him. Sandler’s performance is convincing because it has a strong slapstick element to it. He just zips across the screen and has horrible things happen to him, like Buster Keaton. My problem with it is that you never feel bad for Howard. You don’t feel bad for anybody in Uncut Gems. Shit just happens.

Let’s say Adam Sandler was not in Uncut Gems. That Howard was played by another smarmy middle-aged type with conventional acting skills, like… let's say Jeremy Renner. Both Kevin Garnett and The Weeknd are replaced by fictional basketball player X and fictional performer Y. I believe the legacy of Uncut Gems would’ve then been that it’s only slightly better than their previous movie Good Time, which wasn’t all that original either. Uncut Gems is bound to be divisive. Some will praise its tension, others will be bored by its straighforwardness. I’m in the latter camp.

Uncut Gems delivers on its promises… which I don’t think were very compelling to begin with. The Safdie brothers need a screenwriter to work it.

6.1/10