The journey is the destination in the Safdie brothers' new crime thriller "Uncut Gems," and there's almost nowhere this film won't take you. The mines of Ethiopia, the suburbs of Long Island, inside a human body, out into space _ by the time it's all over you'll feel less like a moviegoer and more like an unmoored spirit wandering through the wide, weird cosmos. And your guide, unlikely as it seems, will be Adam Sandler.
In a ferocious, all-out performance that may put Sandler and Oscar on friendly terms, the comedic actor plays a slick-talking, lovably obnoxious and dangerously dysfunctional man named Howard Ratner, a jewelry dealer in Manhattan's Diamond District. He has become wealthy selling blingy tchotchkes to rappers and sports figures (his best item is a Michael Jackson crucifix), but it isn't enough. Howard is betting the proverbial farm on something called a black opal _ his own Maltese Falcon, smuggled to him in a frozen fish.
The intricacies of plot aren't as important as the parade of characters, played mostly by actors who are either channeling themselves or bucking against type. You'll see a terrific Eric Bogosian as a steely-eyed loan shark, former NBA power forward Kevin Garnett in a major role as himself and first-time actor Keith Williams Richards as a towering thug who seems to represent violence itself. Syosset's Idina Menzel plays Howard's long-suffering wife in Long Island; Wayne Diamond, a former fashion designer, makes his film debut as an unnamed sleazoid; another first-timer, the Manhattan club-kid Julia Fox, shines as Howard's sexually ravenous but unexpectedly tender mistress, also named Julia. And keep an eye out for sportscasting legend Mike Francesa and hip-hop star The Weeknd in small but colorful roles.
