All the Money in the World is directed by Ridley Scott and is based off of the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III by Italian hitmen hoping to get a large ransom fee from his grandfather John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer infamously replacing Kevin Spacey in the role) but he refuses to pay despite caring for his wellbeing so he hires Mr. Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to help the young boy’s mother (Michelle Williams) go to Italy and find him.
All the Money in the World I had hoped would be a rousing return to form for Mr Scott after his very very underwhelming Alien Covenant last year and while it is better than that film it sadly continues his bad streak from this decade save for the Martian from 2015 though this one does have some nice visuals with plumes of Italian grassland and nice big house interiors and cold and windy England days not to mention nice and bright desert landscapes where you can almost feel the heat of those locations.
But I found this to be a very emotionless thriller and to be honest it felt a little bit like a return of the bad old days of Ridley Scott where he would make these visually beautiful films but they would have no emotional pull to them at all and his best work combines the two very well like Blade Runner for example and the scene with the older Japanese mob boss in Black Rain where he talks about being only 10 when the B-29 came and how it led to people like Sato being created in that film but here there is little to that and I found it hard to care after a while if the boy was ever found.
As for the performances Wahlberg and Williams are fine but Plummer was the glue of the story showing a business like ruthlessness as well as being believably grandfatherly but sadly his scenes feel so last minute that what emotional tension there might have been isn’t as fleshed out as it could have been and this is where I would be interested in seeing Kevin’s scenes even if he looked silly with all the old age makeup as I can’t help but feel that that emotional tension might have been there in those scenes given they were done during the main production so Ridley would have had the time to really finesse the filming of those scenes.
Then again if the studio had actually trusted Ridley Scott and let him cast Christopher Plummer as he originally wanted they wouldn’t have had this mess to begin with and the film would’ve been better all around so that should tell you to trust your directors shouldn’t it.
And so that was All the Money in the World and there is no hurry you see for you have all the Time in the World to see this movie its visually nice but a forgettable thriller with no emotional pull Ridley desperately desperately needs a great screenwriter to make great films, 2 out of 5.
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