By Tim Lammers

After last weekend's utterly dismal box office, the September lull at theaters will start to lift Friday with the return of "Finding Nemo" in 3D and the debut of "Arbitrage," a "ripped from the headlines" Wall Street drama that echoes the crimes of infamous Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

Local critics are reacting favorably to "Arbitrage," which stars Richard Gere as Robert Miller, a New York hedge fund billionaire who will stop at nothing to save his own neck after he makes a fatal mistake that threatens to bring down his empire. The film also keys in on a detective (Tim Roth) investigating Miller, and how the revelations of Miller's crimes affect his wife (Susan Sarandon) and CFO daughter (Brit Marling) -- who are both completely oblivious to his dirty dealings.

Chris Hewitt from The Pioneer Press praises writer/director Nicholas Jarecki for keeping a tight focus on the characters in the film and dubs "Arbitrage" a "fascinating melodrama," while Colin Covert from the Star Tribune lauds the film as a "great thriller" that's an all-too-real representation of how the rich can get away with murder.

See the trailer for "Arbitrage" below.

While audiences are familiar with Gere and Sarandon, Marling is a relative newcomer who burst onto the scene last year with her indie feature "Another Earth." In the video below, Marling talks with KARE-TV about that film, and shares her close connection to Minnesota.

Bring Me The News news curator Tim Lammers is also a nationally-syndicated movie journalist whose work appears on more than 50 TV affiliate web sites in the U.S. Tim has interviewed more than 1,000 major actors and filmmakers throughout his career, and locally, he reviews films on "KARE 11 Today" and WCCO Radio. Tim's work is also featured on his website, StrictlyCinema.com.