Critic Reviews

The movie ends in a more conventional place than the one where it begins, yet it still marks a surprising and graceful first fiction feature for writer-director Andrew Renzi.

Fanning has little to do beyond grasping her prosthetic stomach, but James is a decent foil for Gere, who gives form to the highly topical subject of how pain meds destroy lives.

The actor’s comic sad clown performance lifts the film above an ordinary script.

That makes the role well tailored to its occupant: Gere stays within his range of moneyed playboys, while still getting to indulge in the kind of unflattering behavior that a more put-together Richard Gere character would never exhibit.

Renzi's uneven script makes this a less sturdy vehicle than 2012's Arbitrage, and a less marketable one given the absence of thriller elements that sustained that film's character study. Still, there's plenty here for Gere's admirers to appreciate.

It promises a minute character study, but Franny, though embodied by a game Gere who in all fairness does visit places in his performance we have rarely seen him even stop by before, is less a person than a collection of quirks.

Sadly, The Benefactor proves less rich and engaging as it settles into its actual genre: It's yet another troubled-dude-starts-pulling-it-together tale.

While writer-director Andrew Renzi’s feature narrative debut is problematic whenever Gere isn’t onscreen (and even sometimes when he is), the veteran star exudes a damaged magnetism reminiscent of the character studies that thrilled discerning moviegoers in the ’70s.

More times than not, The Benefactor takes the less interesting fork in the road.

Gere, an actor capable of great nuance, hams it up so mightily you’d think the film was sponsored by Boar’s Head.