Money, Money, Money, It's Not So Funny In A Rich Man's World In All The Money In The World

The newest Ridley Scott movie, All The Money In The World, has generated plenty of discussion leading up to its theatrical release this past December and it's extremely easy to see why. Kevin Spacey had shot his entire role as J. Paul Getty earlier this year and the film was almost ready to go when news broke at the tail end of October 2017 about sexual allegations being lobbed at Kevin Spacey. All of a sudden, this motion picture found itself starring one of the most detested men in Hollywood and Ridley Scott undertook a preposterous-sounding task to rectify this: reshoot Spacey's scenes with Christopher Plummer instead playing the role.

No wonder this procedure has generated so much conversation, especially since they actually managed to get All The Money In The World out in time for its release date even given these crucial reshoots. With all of that in mind, what else is going on in this movie beyond an incredible last-minute production feat? Well, All The Money In The World is all about the real-life kidnapping of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), the sixteen-year-old grandson of the incredibly wealthy figure J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer). This young member of the Getty family was held for ransom by a group of people wanting $17 million for his release, money that John Paul Getty's mom, Gail Harris (Michelle Williams), doesn't have.

You'd think she'd be able to just call up her former father-in-law (Harris married and then later divorced J. Paul Getty's son) for such money considering his immense wealth, but the reclusive J. Paul Getty refuses to pay even a cent of the ransom. Gail now has to work with J. Paul Getty's advisor Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) in order to try to find some sort of way they can get her son released. This one's a race against time thriller that feels like an appropriate fit for director Ridley Scott given how he was put on the map as a filmmaker in 1979 with his work behind the camera on the science-fiction feature Alien.

All The Money In The World doesn't come even close to the quality of that early Ridley Scott feature, mainly due to some pacing issues (the climax has one extended chase scene too many) but it remains an entertaining thriller that kept my attention thanks especially to a number of lively performances. Michelle Williams actually gets more to do than expected in the lead role, it's an unexpected treat that Davis Scarpa's script has Gail Harris going through experiences single mom's typically specifically endure in their lives while navigating a far from typical scenario like her son being kidnapped. Williams handles this and other pieces of depth incorporated into her character like a pro, Williams is a reliably good dramatic actor even in the smallest roles and she totally reinforces that with her strong work here.

Christopher Plummer, meanwhile, may have been a last-minute addition to the project but you'd never know it from how well he fits into the entire movie. The way Plummer is able to play both tragedy (like a moment where he clutches a gun and waxes poetic about how objects have been kinder to him in life than people) and 110% assholery in this role is a total treat to watch. Wahlberg's the weakest of the lead trio for sure, his character sometimes feels outright extraneous, but I was surprised at how well Wahlberg is able to blend into a serious story like this. Sometimes Wahlberg can be distracting in otherwise serious dramas, but that's not the case here, he bounces off of both Williams and Plummer in a fine fashion.

There's other notable elements beyond just the lead performances to be found in All The Money In The World of course, most notably how Getty's wealth manifests in stylized ways (like an indoor phone booth) that wouldn't feel out of place at Mr. Burn's Manor. Recurring instances of nuance in the various characters in the script are also a nice touch that help make them feel like people. Once you get that sort of discernable humanistic trait like nuanced behavior down, it becomes much easier to engage in the thrills because there's a character-based grounding to everything. The way a pivotal (and painful-looking) scene with John Paul Getty III in captivity is filmed is also noteworthy, both the camera and the audience are plunged right into the middle of this event without things becoming visually incoherent, very nicely done. 

I still wish All The Money In The World hadn't felt the need for an extraneous final foot-chase sequence that isn't thrilling enough to justify how it doesn't really add up to anything in the larger context of the story. At least this superfluous segment of the story occurs in close proximity to Christopher Plummer's best acting in the movie which I doubt could have been performed as well in terms of just body language alone by someone who wasn't an actual 89-year-old human being. The kind of acting seen here is a nice example of the sort of surprises and deft touches that make All The Money In The World both an entertaining movie and one of Ridley Scott's better recent efforts. Granted, it's not hard to improve on Exodus: Gods And Kings, but you know what I mean!