Review: Gere, quiet and moving in portrait of a homeless man

Any spare change? The man holding the cup in the street looks, from a distance, like just some guy in a wool cap, formless parka and rumpled pants.

Only this is Richard Gere, and if you looked a little closer, you'd recognize those silver-haired good looks and that chiseled face.

[...] those people on the streets in "Time Out of Mind" are actual New Yorkers who often walked by the movie star, oblivious, as director Oren Moverman was shooting, proving — if it needed to be proven — that we don't really look at homeless people among us, even if we're handing them a few quarters.

[...] in this almost documentary-style portrait of a homeless man — clearly a labor of love for Gere, who's also a producer here — the actor succeeds in moving us deeply, precisely because he doesn't call attention to himself in an "actory" way.

The desperate effort to get a few hours of good sleep — when one doesn't own a bed — is one of the film's most depressing motifs.

The brightest spark, if you can call it that, comes from the talkative companion George finds at a homeless shelter — Dixon (a wonderful Ben Vereen), who says he's a former jazz musician and regales George with stories.

Moverman and Gere surround George with conversations — extra loud — that ordinary people are having around him: on the subway, on the phone, in Grand Central Station.