
Year: 2019
Rated R
Rating: * * * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel
Howard Ratner (played by improv over-loader and live-in caricature Adam Sandler) is a bungling jeweler, a trying BS-er, and an addictive gambler. He gets in way over his head making risky bets in order to finally get that big score. That's the gist of the inflamed and black-eyed Uncut Gems. It's my latest review.

Directed by two thirty-year-old brothers (Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie), filmed chiefly in close-ups, featuring some weird colonoscopy imagery, and co-starring former NBA great Kevin Garnett (that's some brilliant casting there), Uncut Gems is the cinematic equivalent of pure cocaine mixed with high-grade angel dust.
Josh and Benny Safdie fashion "Gems" as a sloppy character study and New York minute minutia that still seems to work. The dialogue is raw and massively ad-libitum, there are enough F-words to make Tarantino blush, the camerawork is whizzing, and Sandler lets you know that he's light years away from his blundering, Bobby Boucher shtick.

Written by Jesse Burleson
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