To put it simply and expletively, 80-year-old filmmaker Ridley Scott gives zero fucks. This is evinced in the director’s brusque, unapologetic nature, his no-nonsense, unlabored-over approach to filmmaking (two takes and he’s out) and the way the helmer turns a would-be moneymaking franchise (the “Alien” series) into his plaything to explore self-preoccupied interests of mortality and cruel, unforgiving gods, ideas that most audiences have little time for. When Scott does have to serve the franchise obligations, he does so in nasty, R-rated fashion as if make the studio regret what they asked for.
But nowhere is Scott’s cavalier, couldn’t-care-less attitude more evident than in his latest drama, “All The Money In The World,” a based-on-a-true-story period-piece thriller about an infamous kidnapping that reveals a scorching, ugly, dark psychology inside. “All The Money In The World,” isn’t about garden variety greed, but more of a pathological, insatiable hunger for unbridled covetousness. It’s not quite the feel bad movie of the year, but Scott sure isn’t placating to an audience nor asking anyone why they might want to see a movie about fundamental avarice and callousness. But Ridley Scott makes movies Ridley Scott wants to see and that’s that.
“All The Money In The World” tracks the aftermath of teenager John Paul Getty III’s (Charlie Plummer) kidnapping at the hands of Italian thugs connected to the mafia. When his desperate mother Gail (Michelle Williams) tries to convince her estranged, billionaire, former father-in-law, John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom money and save his grandson’s life, the tightfisted oil tycoon — perfectly capable of paying the extortion money 10x over — is unmoved and unbowed to any demands. In a race against time to save the boy, while trying to convince Getty to come to his aide, she finds an unlikely ally in Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), Getty’s trusted security advisor and a former CIA operative skilled in the art of negotiation and crisis management.
Set in the 1970s, after some flashbacks explaining how the Getty family severed ties to the eccentric and apathetic magnate, three storylines quickly emerge: Getty Jr. captured, dehumanized but bonding with one of his kidnappers, Cinquanta (Romain Duris); Gail and Fletcher trying to buy some time and figure out a plan; and Getty Sr. indifferent to anything other than holding on to and amassing more wealth while the clock on his grandson’s life ticks away in the process. It’s a maddening, absurd premise if you think about it: the world’s wealthiest man refusing to pay a ransom simply because if he does more people will just line-up at his door grovelling or demanding money. But mostly, Getty Sr. refuses to pay because the money is his. According to this recounting of the tale, he’s a sociopath devoid of empathy, a hoarder of expensive objects whose only true love is money, paintings and artifacts of value that can never fail him the way people can.
It’s perplexing subject for a movie — a detached, unfeeling examination of being held captive by money — that will engender no good will from an audience, but Ridley Scott has his own ends to explore. And yes, while there’s a mostly engaging thriller running on top that should satisfy audiences — will or won’t they rescue poor John Paul Getty III — at the heart of the story is a portrait of a miserable, rapacious man incapable of sympathy for anyone other than himself. It’s not meant to echo Donald Trump per se — this character is less aggrieved, paranoid, and persecuted and more confident — but the comparisons don’t hurt it.
Much like “Alien: Covenant,” where Ridley exploited xenomorphs to pursue his own genuine interests — the harsh, ugly truths of what could happen if we meet our makers — the director uses the kidnapping narrative as the cover to mask his fixation with a miserly, inhuman man. “All The Money In The World,” isn’t really enjoyable or entertaining, but it’s gripping in its punitive portrayal of ruthlessness.
But as distant and hardhearted as “All The Money In The World” is, as cynical and bitter as its aftertaste leaves, it boasts a tremendous, towering performance by Christopher Plummer as the monstrously self-interested and parsimonious Uber-Grinch; a repellent, irredeemable character. Plummer gives no quarter and Scott rarely, if ever, bothers to humanize him. Michelle Williams is also striking as the despairing mother living inside her own horror movie subplot.
What’s further fascinating about “All The Money In The World” is how its external, outsized drama — Kevin Spacey being removed from the film and Scott recasting and reshooting the entire role in nine days with Plummer in the role instead — quickly emerges as its least interesting element. The damning allegations of rape and various shades of abhorrent sexual transgressions against Spacey, as atrocious as they are, quickly become an afterthought the second Plummer, seemingly born to play this spiteful, vindictive character, walks onto the screen and tears it all down. No small feat given how much shock and ink was spilled over Scott’s eleventh hour recasting and superhuman, perhaps historic accomplishment of reshooting the entire role in a flash (there’s one early shot in a Saudi desert where Plummer looks CGI’d in, but otherwise, the integration is flawless). You won’t wonder what Spacey’s version of the movie was like. You just won’t care.
Imagine “Munich” — another kind of fast-moving, morally ambiguous thriller about a hostage crisis with many layers under the hood—without the Spielberg-ian touch that leaves you with at least a tiny sense of humanity and hope for change. There is next to no empathy inside “All The Money In The World,” aside from a mother’s unrelenting devotion, and that’s the point; it’s an unlovable movie about an unloved, indifferent, controlling man taking out his personal anguish and inability to connect with anyone other than the things he collects on those around him.
Scott’s commanding movie — brisk, vigorous, masterfully crafted — is unrepentant. Never does “All The Money In The World” invite sympathy for Getty Sr. nor does it ever really damn him, instead presenting a clear-eyed, unambiguous reflection that says this is us, this is where humanity is in today’s day and age. The film is even pragmatic about Getty Sr.’s choices. Hey, it’s his money, the movie seems to suggest, he earned it, he acquired it, he kept it and who are you to tell him what to do with it? If not sympathetic to Getty Sr.’s point of view, the movie at least tries to understand his motivation. And in the era of Trump and self-serving, coldblooded politicians, robbing of you of healthcare while lining their pockets, “All The Money In The World” should deeply, if inadvertently, resonate with those that haven’t been brainwashed into believing they haven’t been utterly lied to and swindled.
You may hate “All The Money In The World,” and you would be well within your rights to feel that way, but there’s no denying that the film is bold and ballsy. It’s difficult imagining an audience wanting to spend time with John Paul Getty Sr., much less watch a movie about him, and therein lies Scott’s confident, crisp audacity.
“All The Money In The World,” is about being held hostage, literally and figuratively, to money, to the burdens of family, to obligation, even to the social contracts that require us to show acts of kindness and compassion (the GOP, venal capitalists and coldhearted conservatives are going to adore this film). Much like its odious character, who is not an anti-hero, but an unwell narcissist with boundless flaws, Scott’s dark, defiant movie is captivatingly curt and heartless. The question of who this bleak film is actually for is a fascinating one, until you realize the answer is an audience of one: Ridley Scott, because the filmmaker just doesn’t give a good goddamn what you think. [B]