All the Money in the World *** (2017, Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Plummer) – Movie Review

John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) has All the Money in the World but won’t cough up the $17 million ransom his daughter-in-law Gail (Michelle Williams) needs for the ransom to spring his 16-year-old grandson Jean Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) from Italian kidnappers who snatch the boy from the Rome streets in 1973.

Gail has previously crossed old Getty by ending up with custody of her children. He seems to want to mess with her head.

Gail and Getty III have a couple of good things on their side – Getty Sr’s surprisingly kindly security man Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), who is to help her get the kid back alive, and Cinquanta (Romain Duris), the surprisingly kindly Calabrian bandit who has snatched the boy for the money but wants him to stay alive. With no ransom forthcoming, Cinquanta sells the kid on to a dodgy Italian businessman, and things get even nastier and more desperate for Getty III.

Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World (2017).

Plummer follows up his miser Scrooge in The Man Who Invented Christmas with his miser Getty. It’s kind of the same turn, but then he’s good at it. Agreed, the first film shows his comedic version of his turn, and this one is played for tragedy and mature depth, and gets some of the way there, a lot of the way there, most of the way there actually.

He does provide a weird warmth and humanity behind this chilly monster of a character. His Getty melts – if only a little – like his Scrooge. He comes over as a bone fide Charles Foster Kane character from Citizen Kane, a warped but credible and understandable human being. Plummer is certainly the best thing in the movie.

Michelle Williams in All the Money in the World (2017).

However, Williams, Wahlberg and Charlie Plummer are pretty much ideal, giving highly competent, super-professional turns. French star Romain Duris is fine playing Cinquanta, though casting an Italian actor would be much better. Timothy Hutton plays the lawyer Oswald Hinge, but it’s a non-role, as are all the others in the film, cops, press, bandits, whoever – all just undefined wallpaper.

All the Money in the World is a slightly awkward, uneasy film. As a straight thriller it is talky, slow paced and way overlong, and lacks enough thrills. There is some tension, suspense and drama along the way though. When the climax comes, the film threatens to get exciting but, as it does, it becomes vaguely unbelievable and fizzles a bit, ending more with a whimper than a bang.

Luckily it all happened so long ago probably hardly anyone knows whether Getty III survived his ordeal or not. The film depends very much on the suspense of what happens to him. It is crucial, just like Murder on the Orient Express depends on audience not knowing whodunit.

As a personal drama and a reflection on wealth it scores higher than it does as a thriller. There is very considerable interest here, though it does not achieve the level Ridley Scott was probably aiming at. It isn’t a very nice, or very appealing story. The characters aren’t very pleasant. It isn’t much fun spending two and a quarter hours in their company, to be honest. It’s quite a downbeat, borderline depressing story.

Ridley Scott turns in his usual uber-smart looking film, with intimate attention to detail and details. He seems to be enjoying all the period stuff and the Italian dolce vita atmosphere, cars, Vespas, streets, food, the Rome sights – relishing it all, covering it in his trademark smoky look. Scott makes a real movie of it, not just a glorified TV movie.

Sony and the production team decided to replace Kevin Spacey as J Paul Getty with Christopher Plummer on 8 November 2017, just over a month before the US 22 December release. Re-shoots took eight days, involved 22 scenes and cost $10 million. Wahlberg and Williams had to return to the Rome set during Thanksgiving.

Plummer went on to be nominated for an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor. At 88, he became the oldest Academy Award nominee for acting.

In September 2018, Dame Judi Dench said it was wrong to remove her good friend Kevin Spacey’s performance from All the Money in the World. ‘I can’t approve, in any way, of the fact – whatever he has done – that you then start to cut him out of films,’ she said. ‘Are we to go back throughout history now and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or has broken the law, or has committed some kind of offence, are they always going to be cut out? Are we going to exclude them from our history?’

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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