Reviews of All the Money in the World

Film review: All the Money in the World

(Image credit:

TriStar Pictures

)

Ridley Scott'southward kidnap drama sees Christopher Plummer in a role originally played by Kevin Spacey. It's an comeback in an otherwise underwhelming pic, writes Nicholas Hairdresser.

R

Ridley Scott'due south true-life kidnap drama, All the Money in the World, is destined to go downwards in movie theatre history as the film that Kevin Spacey was in, and then wasn't in. Spacey had finished shooting his role equally John Paul Getty, the filthy-rich United states oil tycoon, when he was accused of sexual harassment and assault. Just six weeks before the film was due to exist released, Scott announced that it wouldn't be delayed: he would simply reshoot all of Spacey'south scenes with Christopher Plummer playing Getty instead.

Amazingly, there's no sign of terminal-minute tinkering. Getty is a major character who is seen in numerous settings and alongside numerous other characters, only his scenes never seem rushed or compromised. On the opposite, they're the best, virtually assured parts of an otherwise proficient but underwhelming pic. I assume we'll get to see the equivalent Spacey scenes ane solar day, just it's hard to believe that they'll be better than Plummer's.

For ane thing, Getty'south former age is a key facet of his character, and the 88-year-one-time Plummer looks the part, whereas Spacey's prosthetic make-upwards in the original trailer made him resemble an evil Muppet. For some other thing, Spacey specialises in apparently slimy, Mephistophelian villains, whereas Plummer gives Getty an avuncular twinkle and a hint of vulnerability. Spacey'due south characters tend to know that they're monsters; Plummer'south Getty would be offended past the very idea.

The rest of the film isn't as compelling as he is, though. At the start of All the Coin in the Earth, Getty's long-haired 16-year-one-time grandson, Paul (Charlie Plummer - no relation to Christopher), is enjoying la dolce vita in Rome in 1973 when he is grabbed by some strangers in balaclavas, thrown into the back of a camper van, and driven abroad to a shack in the southern Italian countryside. The ragtag kidnappers, led by Cinquanta (Romain Duris), demand a $17 million (£12.5 million) bribe.

Paul'due south father, John Paul Getty Jr (Andrew Buchan), is no help to anyone: he'south in a drugged-up stupor in Marrakech. The boy's mother, Abigail (Michelle Williams), who lives in Rome, is desperate for the ransom to exist paid, but she has had no contact with the Gettys since she divorced John Jr, and she has no access to the family unit's fortune. So that leaves Getty himself - and he refuses to pay a penny of the ransom. After all, he chuckles to a crowd of reporters, if he rewards the extortionists who take abducted one of his 14 grandchildren, they might be encouraged to abduct the others. Simply does he really accept his relatives' best interests at centre, or is he just insanely hateful? Plummer recently played Ebeneezer Scrooge in The Man Who Invented Christmas, and Scrooge would have canonical of Getty's decision to install a telephone booth in his Surrey stately home so that he doesn't have to trounce out for his visitors' telephone calls.

Every bit miserly as he is, however, he assigns one of his most trusted negotiators, Fletcher Chase (Marking Wahlberg), to bring Paul home - the cue, you might think, for some kick-ass action. Fletcher is a quondam CIA agent, after all, and he is played past a film star who embodies working-course brawn-over-encephalon bravery and toughness. He even has "Chase" in his proper noun. He may exist wearing a Clark Kent-manner waistcoat and spectacles, but it'southward condom to assume that Cinquanta is about to receive the full Liam Neeson handling.

If merely. After a gripping scene-setting department that flits confidently betwixt different decades and unlike continents, All the Money in the Globe slows downwards to a sauntering pace. Months drift by, and while Scott keeps cut back and along betwixt Gettys of various generations, nothing actually happens. Out in the sticks, Cinquanta and his gang are getting bored of waiting around with Paul. And in Rome and England, the Gettys don't appear to exist in any hurry to get him back.

The largely useless Fletcher lounges in Abigail's flat, playing with her younger children; in i scene, Wahlberg resorts to doing some high-speed press-ups, as if to reassert his macho credentials. Williams is terrific at conveying fierce determination while maintaining her character'south upper-crust reserve, but it's not entirely clear what Abigail is doing to aid her son. It'southward weeks before she of a sudden has the genius idea of selling a family heirloom in guild to heighten some greenbacks herself, and this sluggishness saps the film of the tension that any earnest story needs. Abigail may not accept all the money in the globe, merely she behaves as if she has all the fourth dimension.

A climactic hide-and-seek sequence in an Italian hill town attempts to add some thrills - and it might accept succeeded, if information technology hadn't been so blatantly fictional - merely Ridley'southward motion-picture show holds the attention only when it returns to Getty'south cavernous mansion. A grumpy, paranoid loner reminiscent of Charles Foster Kane, with a dash of Mr Burns from The Simpsons, Getty is someone who will spend a 7-effigy sum on a small Renaissance painting of disputed provenance, but who will wash his own underwear in a hotel bathroom to save on laundry fees. He raises intriguing questions about the mentality of the super-rich, and a film that concentrated on him, with Plummer in the atomic number 82 office, might well accept been better than All the Money in the Globe. Improve still, how about a behind-the-scenes drama detailing why Spacey was replaced, and how Scott managed to exercise the reshoots in record time? That would be worth shelling out for.

★★★☆☆

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180103-film-review-all-the-money-in-the-world