Uncut Gems (2019) – Review

“Never say never”. That was the saying that came to mind immediately after seeing Uncut Gems. A few years ago, after seeing Pixels, I took the decision not to see a single film with Adam Sandler. His comedies are unfortunately bad and I didn’t want to expose myself to those horrors anymore. However, when I heard that he was playing the lead role in a new film by the Safdie brothers, I had to put my decision aside. Their film Good Time was one of those titles which grabbed the viewer and never let go. It showed how good Robert Pattinson is as an actor. When the brothers wrote Uncut Gems, they had Sandler in mind for the lead role.

Sandler is Howard Ratner, a charismatic jeweler in New York. He has obtained a unique stone from Ethiopia that is full of black opals and can make him a lot of money. Howard loves to take risks and likes to gamble and when famous basketball player Kevin Garnett borrows his stone, he sees it as a sign to gamble a lot at his next basketball game. If he wins, that can change his life, but a loss could potentially destroy him as creditors have been chasing him for a while.

Of course, Sandler showed earlier that he can do other roles than comedy with, for example, Punch-Drunk Love, but here he plays a character that seems to live for adrenaline. He makes money in all kinds of ways (for example by pawning borrowed goods) and thereby takes risks that every normal thinking person would avoid. His character likes to put everything at stake, both in the field of work and in his private life. As a viewer you almost get anxious about the way this man lives. Only one small thing has to go wrong to make everything collapse like a house of cards. Sandler brings that to life in a convincing way and that, in combination with the camera work of the Safdie brothers, produces a rough diamond that works enchantingly.

[score9]