REVIEW: All the Money in the World

Directed by Ridley Scott
2017 Crime Drama
2 hours, 12 minutes
From Sony-TriStar Pictures

Starring
Michelle Williams
Christopher Plummer
Mark Wahlberg
Romaine Duris
Charlie Plummer
Timothy Hutton

We are not like you, young J. Paul Getty III says in his narration at the beginning of the story and it only takes a minute or two to realize that is quite the understatement.

Ripped from the day-to-day headlines in 1973 when III, at age 16, is kidnapped from the Piazza Farmese in Rome and taken to a mountain hideout in the southern area of Calabria.  I remember it all very well, tuned in as I was to every breathless episode.  A ransom of 17 million dollars is demanded from the boy's oil magnate grandfather, J. Paul Getty, as tight-fisted with his emotions as he is with vast fortune.  He was, at the time, the richest man in the world.

Into the morass comes the boy's mother, the elder Getty's cash-strapped, ex-daughter-in-law, Gail.  She does all she can to get the boy's stingy grandfather to let loose with some cash.  But despite the fact that III is the favorite of his 14 grandchildren, the old man says that if he paid, he would then wind up having 14 kidnapped grandchildren. What he does do is have his security specialist, Fletcher Chase, work with Gail and negotiate with the kidnappers. 

The story goes back and forth among all the principals which includes a gaggle of thugs, giving the most attention to the kind Cinquanta, the one put in direct charge of the boy's care.

Actual followers of the day-to-day news at the time were shocked to learn the kidnappers cut off the boy's ear (this scene in the film is not for the squeamish) and mailed it to the family.  Ultimately, the old man relents, the ransom is paid and the boy is returned to his family.  I'm not sure the ending is really what transpired but it added some drama.

My problem with All the Money in the World, frankly, is that it needed more drama, more of a sense of urgency. I was looking forward to the dramatic confrontations between the elder Getty and his ex-daughter-in-law but they never came.  It would have helped provide a boost to the generally lackadaisical proceedings.

The film, of course, became famous before its release when director/co-producer Ridley Scott and those at Sony decided to scrap all of the work of Kevin Spacey, accused of sexual misconduct, and replace him with Christopher Plummer who had been considered once for the role.  The change meant re-shooting 22 scenes and required that Williams, Wahlberg and others return to Rome at an overall cost of 10 million dollars.

I wonder if they regard it as a good investment.  On the plus side is that Christopher Plummer is the best thing about the film.  His character is also richly written... one actually learns something about the old curmudgeon.  My favorite part with him was when he is describing why he prefers things to people.

What acting accolades left to bestow go to Romaine Duris as Cinquanta.  He breathed some life into a role that could easily have been just another cardboard cutout.  

On the other side of that 10 million dollar investment is everything else.  I had heard the film was well worth seeing due to Williams' gutsy performance but unhappily I must have missed that.  She was perhaps a notch above her usual rather wan performances and Scott and company missed an opportunity through her to breath some life into a surprisingly tepid film.   

Wahlberg (as the security specialist) has probably never been so low-key and Charlie (no relation to Christopher) Plummer barely registers at all.  That, too, seemed like a mistake because as the object of all the fuss, we should have cared more about him.

In real life, and outside the parameters of the film,  III died of a drug overdose in 2011 at the age of 54.  In the small world department, Scott directed White Squall in 1996 that costarred Balthazar Getty, the son of III.

While I certainly enjoyed parts of this movie, I expect that ultimately, when all the press dies down and the film retires from its first-run status, it will be regarded as one of Ridley Scott's more routine films.



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