It’s giving Coen Brothers, That’s the immediate vibe of “Greedy People,” a new crime comedy from director Potsy Ponciroli (the revisionist Wester “Old Henry”) and playwright and screenwriter Michael Vukadinovich (“Kidding”). Everyone wants to be the Coens at one point in their life, and sure, it’s a big goal to aspire to, and it’s ostensibly entertaining to cast Tim Blake Nelson as a familiar yokel. Yet it’s a tricky line, and if you don’t capture the right idiosyncratic, peculiar tone, things can easily go sideways.
READ MORE: 2024 Fall Film Preview: 50 Movies To Watch
And that’s what mainly occurs in “Greedy People,” an uninspired Coen Brothers riff that focuses on a pair of bumbling, idiot cops in the sleepy, picturesque town of Providence, Rhode Island, the kooky residents of this village, and a whirling dervish of increasing complications and bad decisions. It also portends to be a sincere moral fable about avarice and the way it corrupts people—via the bookends of the beginning and end of the story—but it hardly convinces and leaves one a little puzzled at the jejune attempt at blurting something meaningful after 90 minutes of wacky crime tales and dishonest people.
“Greedy People” begins with Will Shelley (Himesh Patel) and his expectant wife Paige (Lily James) getting settled after a move to Providence, and Will prepares for his first day on the local police force job.
This picturesque island town is filled with eccentric characters, and the first and foremost is Will’s rogue-ish partner, Terry Brogan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who takes him under his wings and shows him the ropes. But he’s a boorish idiot rube who smells like trouble.
Yet before that, “Greedy People” opens with a voiceover-y (“Raising Arizona”-like) prologue with the local sheriff (played by Uzo Aduba) in a child’s bedroom, talking to its stuffed animals and telling the child she misses him, a parable about grief that will factor in-ish later.
Not soon after introducing Will to the job and Terry’s slovenly and troubling work ethic—screwing his sidepiece on the job— puts Will in a jam where he must respond to a burglary by himself. On the scene, Will, nervous and inexperienced, tussles with an older lady (Traci Lords) and accidentally almost shoots her. A scuffle ensues, a table shatters, and in the unexpected melee—the rookie completely surprised it’s happening— the woman is impaled and dies.
When Terry finally arrives on the scene to take in this enormous debacle, he realizes Will misinterpreted the police code—not a burglary, and something far more trivial— and the blonde woman is Virginia Chetlo, the house’s owner. Panicking, things go from bad to worse—as it usually the case in the mounting would-be comedic scenarios—and the two police officers accidentally discover a million dollars in cash, and decide to take the money and cover up the crime.
This would be more than enough for the movie, but it piles on more screwy and ridiculous twists. In this case, we soon discover that Virginia’s husband Wallace Chetlo (Tim Blake Nelson, playing a very Coen-esque Tim Blake Nelson character), a shrimp company owner who had been plotting to kill his wife himself and the bag of money the cops found was intended for Virginia’s hired killer.
What follows is a snowballing of horrible choices, rising complications, and everyone acting out of their own self-interest. The cops try to pin the murder on Wallace. At the same time, Virginia’s would-be assassin, The Colombian (Jose Yazpik), wants the money he’s owed, even though he technically didn’t put the kibosh on Virginia himself (killers will be killers). Everyone, including Will’s pregnant wife, gets embroiled in the wild dash for the cash, and it all goes south for everyone, naturally.
Simon Rex (“Red Rocket”) also co-stars as an idiot masseur who has witnessed too much. Jim Gaffigan (“Chappaquiddick”) appears in a role that’s probably too spoiler-ish to discuss thoroughly. Still, all these good actors can’t save a movie meant to be an entertaining thriller, both comedic and occasionally horrific, but lands as just unexciting and unremarkable. Aiming to be a tale of great comeuppance—everyone tested to the limits of how far they will go for the almighty dollar— “Greedy People” just doesn’t have the wit, style, or clever gumption of the type of Coen Brothers comedy it so desperately hopes to be.
Admittedly, however, around the third act, “Greedy People” starts to come to life a little bit and isn’t afraid to kill major characters in the name of abrupt outbursts of comedic violence, and it works. The section of the movie final provides some much-needed laugh out loud outbursts of violent and outrageous humor—ala Quentin Tarantino a little bit— but it’s a little late in the game to salvage things in this fourth quarter rally. The “Greedy People” story does a number on the peace and tranquility of the community, but it will probably only faintly register as a mild diversion for audiences at best. [C-]