All the Money in the World

2017’s All the Money in the World, directed by Ridley Scott.

Starring Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Plummer, Christopher Plummer, Romain Duris, and Timothy Hutton.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Kevin Spacey Christopher Plummer).

What is it about?

Based in mid 1970’s Italy, a naive young teenager (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped. The teen is not just any teen, but the grandson of the world’s richest man, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer). The kidnapper’s ransom? A cool 17 million- from the account of Getty’s. With the teen’s mother (Michelle Williams) cash poor but heavily motivated, and the oil magnate cash rich but motivationally destitute, fixer Mark Wahlberg is dispatched to both deal with the kidnappers and assuage Williams. Will the son be returned to his mother intact, or will Getty’s fortune remain untouched at the cost of a grandson?

Why is it worth seeing?

With a fair bit of political circumstances surrounding the film, it can be difficult to focus on the film itself. With the stakes high in terms of Charlie Plummer’s character being dangled for cash, ATMITW ‘s greatest attribute is taking the ticking clock tension of a desperate mother clawing to get her son back from kidnappers, and adds the dynamic of the kidnappers knowing that the money needs to come from her estranged ex-father in law, Getty.

Salary discrepancies aside, I was a little concerned about Wahlberg’s casting, given his propensity for talking to toasters and talking in general. Here, I was pleasantly surprised, and his understated but potent presence grounds the movie after an anxious opening third with a dizzying amount of flashbacks and out of place narration. Also good, is Romain Duris’ as a captor, who doesn’t mind doing some ugly negotiating- but also wants his mark to live and suffer as little as possible.

Conversely, possessing the warmth of an ATM, Plummer (Kevin Spacey’s replacement) is adequate as the oil titan who agreed to donate a portion of his grandson’s kidnapping ransom as long as it was tax deductible (amongst other conditions). That and other Return On Investment kind of ethos can make for a sometimes grim film. It’s entirely possible the reshooting the film went through might explain the jumbled opening third. But for gore hounds, there’s even a sequence that could be mistaken for something out of Scott’s other film he made this year, Alien: Covenant. Just to be clear it’s not, the script does say the title of the film a few times.

Rating:

3/5

Trailer: Click Here.