For the 2nd film of the weekend, I chose to go and see All the Money in the World, by Ridley Scott, who requires no introduction. The curiosity about this film was multi-layered: What would be the result of the late changes to the film, after Kevin Spacey’s role was reshot entirely with Christopher Plummer, and just how much a soulless bastard his real-life counterpart, J.P Getty, really was?

The story we follow is based on the real-life events behind the kidnapping of J.P Getty’s grandson, J.P Getty III (Charlie Plummer, and no, they aren’t related) in Italy in 1973, not before being shown how Jean Paul Getty became the worlds richest man at the time (An oil tycoon, not the image company, how foolish of me). It’s told from the perspective of Gail Getty (Michelle Williams), mother of J.P Getty III and ex-daughter-in-law to the billionaire, as she tries to get her son back from Italian kidnappers while also fighting a losing battle with her ex-father-in-law in trying to secure the money to pay the ransom, accompanied along the way by one of Getty’s right-hand men, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg). Getty’s refusal to pay is not out of principle, but out of his belief that his grandson simply isn’t worth paying for, as he confidently proclaims to a gaggle of journalists outside of his English stately home. This leads to internal conflict amongst the Getty’s, a mostly nonchalant attitude towards the kidnapping for months until traumatic events to young Getty turns the situation completely.

Off the bat, a round of applause must be given to the team behind All the Money in the World for achieving a seemingly impossible task: to reshoot and edit a large portion of the film after the fall from grace of Kevin Spacey and the decision to distance themselves from him. The fact they put all this extra work in, removing any trace of Spacey seamlessly, for the most part, and delivering the film on it original premiere date is nothing short of remarkable. That being said, knowing this information beforehand can be distracting as you look for any obvious signs that Christopher Plummer was not meant to be there.

The main cause for celebration is that, throughout the film, we truly get to find out how much of a tight fisted bastard Jean Paul Getty really was. Everything he says and does relates back to his perceived value of the cost of things and makes no qualms that fortune and possessions are the most important things in his life. As my Dad would say, he throws his money around like a man with no arms. But for how well we get to know J.P Getty, everyone else is underdeveloped or misrepresented. Gail is who we are supposed to be sympathetic towards and while she does make a point on a couple of occasions to show that money isn’t important to her, this is all while living in a massive apartment in Rome and wearing the finest clothes throughout. Rich people problems spring to mind. Mark Wahlberg’s Fletcher Chase is completely lost in the shuffle and visually doesn’t fit into the 70’s, looking like the Marky Mark we know of present day. All I knew of young Getty in leaving the cinema is that he is cocky but not money-driven like his grand-father, which again offered me no sympathy towards his plight. Lastly, I found myself rooting the most for one of the kidnappers, hoping he would get away from the men who are worse than him, even though he still kidnapped a 17-year-old child.

Time is also a major issue with this piece, both in the way it’s represented on screen and the pacing of the film. In the first act, multiple jumps in time back and forth are made to develop the family’s backstory, giving clear on-screen indication of where we are and when it is. After that though, we are left to guess just how long has passed since young Getty has been kidnapped, with one solitary line about how its months instead of days. The 2nd act is a drawn-out affair before things really kick into gear with a very graphic act (Hint: check the poster) that moves everything else into motion. I found myself looking at my watch twice during the heel-dragging stage of the film, not a good sign.

Verdict:

An interesting look into the psyche of Jean Paul Getty with several memorable “Did he just say that?!” moments, but fails to engage the audience with any other character. Overly long at 133 minutes of runtime, the audience will be just as fed up of waiting as the kidnappers were by the 3rd act. An accomplishment that huge changes were made without delaying its release, but ultimately directing choices in the original shoots condemn this film to being one of Ridley Scott’s least memorable outings.

Score: