Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2017) - Part Two

 

25. All The Money in the World

Ridley Scott keeps roughly one hundred different projects in development at all times, so you never can be sure which will emerge as his next movie. When “All the Money in the World” moved to the forefront for the director, it was poised at about the level you'd expect: A respected director was taking on another strange-than-fiction facts-based case, drawing attention from award season prognosticators. Kevin Spacey playing notoriously frugal billionaire J. Paul Getty was expected to be the centerpiece of the movie's Oscar campaign... Before Spacey was outed as a sexual predator and became persona non grata in Hollywood. This forced Scott to recast the part with Christopher Plummer, reshooting some scenes and digitally inserting Plummer into others. Rather than just delay the movie, he pulled all this off mere weeks before the original release date. Because Ridley Scott is a wonderful lunatic. The recasting stunt, and surrounding intrigue, gained “All the Money in the World” far more infamy than it would have had otherwise. 

You may be familiar with the real story. J. Paul Getty brought the oil industry to the Middle East and made himself the richest private citizen in the world, a billionaire in the 1950s. At one point, Getty was close to his son, John Paul Jr., and his grandson, John Paul III. However, after John Paul Jr. fell into drug addiction, and his wife Gail passed up a massive divorce settlement in return for sole custody of their son, J. Paul Getty would largely disown them. In 1973, while in Italy, John Paul Getty III is kidnapped by a circle of professional criminals. They demand 17 million in ransom money. Due to passing on the settlement, Gail does not have this kind of cash. She's forced to ask Getty for the money. The billionaire, however, refuses to pay. Tense negotiations ensue.

Within the context of Scott's wider career, “All the Money in the World” slots in nicely next to “American Gangster.” Both are about opposing people with wildly different relationships with money. J. Paul Getty was the world's first billionaire and he didn't get that way by giving money away. He's depicted here as a cruel businessman, who obsesses over the stock ticker even while his grandson is being kept as a hostage. Who only agrees to help pay the ransom once it's determined he can write the money off on his taxes. Gail Harris, meanwhile, has no money. She cares nothing for business and is more concerned with her family, which stymies and angers her father-in-law. “All the Money in the World” largely plays out as a battle of wills between these two forces, a man who knows nothing but greed and a woman motivated more by empathy, with the life of a boy hanging in the balance.

J. Paul Getty is depicted as a man almost unable to relate to other people. When he first interacts with his grandson, when he's only a boy, it's through a museum gift shop trinket he pretends is a valuable historical relic. He can relate to Paul Getty III only as an extension of his own legacy, telling the boy that he's extending a bloodline of kings. In place of family members, Getty surrounds himself with objects. Expensive paintings and works of art fill his home. When he should be paying for his grandson's life, he instead buys another classical painting. (Which is of the Christ child, a bit of visual irony the film can't resist.) He can possess things, using them to bolster his own fortune, while people have their own wills and needs. In other words, “All the Money in the World” is a portrait of another billionaire sociopath whose fortune has hardened his heart to any sort of empathy.

It's easy to see why “All the Money in the World” appealed to Ridley Scott. The conflict between Getty, the richest of the rich, and Gail, a humble single mom, continues the working class themes that occasionally emerge from the director's films. More pressing is how the themes of conflict between children and their father figures continues to emerge in Scott's latter day work. When Gail is married to John Paul Jr., the eldest Getty accepts her as part of the family. When they divorce, Gail rejects the Getty family pay-out – the only language J. Paul really speaks – in favor of keeping her kids. J. Paul Getty sees this as a personal insult, a rejection of his whole identity. Thus begins the petty punishment of his former daughter-in-law and grandchildren, Mr. Getty emerging as the worst kind of father figure: Those who enact hateful revenge on their children, born and adopted, for not matching up with his desires for them.

“All the Money in the World” leaps around in time but is primarily set in 1973. That was right when the Vietnam War was still raging, when the western world of capitalism was still trying to impose its will on the communist corners of the globe. When John Paul III is first kidnapped, the activity is initially blamed on left-wing terrorists. This proves to be a misunderstanding, as career criminals with Mafia ties were instead responsible for the ransom. Yet it nevertheless gives us a peek at the political climate of the day: When the entrenched forces of old money were fearful of the radicalized youth... Who were actually no threat to them all, as more vicious forms of regular old greed were instead what was chipping at their fortunes. The film says all of this without ever mentioning hippies or the war in Vietnam.

“All the Money in the World” is almost a movie split in two. While one half focuses on the negotiations with the eldest Getty, the other details on the youngest Getty's kidnapping. This part of the film functions like an especially grim thriller. John is put through hell. He's kidnapped, chained up, and threatened. He witnesses one of his kidnappers getting shot right in front of him. His health deteriorates and he's traded back and forth by various criminals. You really feel sorry for the kid, played well by the ironically named Charlie Plummer. This part of the film peaks with several key scenes. Getty nearly escapes, running to a near-by home, before his captors catch up with him. Even after his ransom is paid, he feels like he has to run. Which leads to an overly long denouncement, only adding to the movie's slightly shaggy 132-minute runtime. That too long conclusion ensures the film ends on a bit more of a whimper than a bang.

Since it's a Ridley Scott movie made in the last ten years, you can count on one thing about “All the Money in the World.” It's going to look a specific way. Scott's use of color correction is as present as ever before. Presumably to match the hundred dollar bills at the story's center, Scott adds a greenish tint to many of the movie's scenes. And because some things never change, the director throws in lots of stylish lighting too. This is most apparent when John Paul III is in captivity, with the rare rays of light shinning into his prison cell through small windows. Or the noir-inspired finale, which features lots of people running through the darkened streets of Italy at night. Scott even indulges in that old favorite of his, rolling fog banks, briefly during a walk around J. Paul Getty's estate early in the film.

Ridley Scott being who he is, he still can't help but include some graphic violence. When the police raid the area where John Paul III was being kept, it devolves quickly into a shoot-out with the kidnappers. Cue slow-motion shots of red mist exploding from people's bodies as they are gunned down. Of course, Ridley saves the most prominent burst of crimson for the most infamous moment in the entire case: When John Paul's ear is sliced off. It's a grim and intense moment which is topped off with an almost comical spurt of blood. It seems, at this point in his career, the director has forgotten how to treat violence in any way besides theatrical and exaggerated. Again, this works fine for an “Alien” sequel or a gladiator movie but feels out-of-place in a fact-based drama like this.

Though Scott initially planned to cast Natalie Portman in the role, Michelle Williams would ultimately win the role of Gail Ferris. Williams, affecting an interesting accent, plays Ferris as a woman who is desperate but rarely lets it show. She is terrified for her son's life yet absolutely disgusted to have to ask her former father-in-law for help. She's tossed about by the wild wills of the story and, though she's clearly on the edge of cracking the whole time, keeps it together. The moment when Ferris turns the tables on Getty, when she “starts to think like a Getty,” is such a powerful moment of victory for her.

Mark Wahlberg plays Fletcher Chace, Getty's adviser that is dispatch to negotiate with the kidnappers. Wahlberg is an actor that, when paired with a challenging script and filmmaker, can deliver vulnerable and thoughtful performance. Yet, too often, he's content to shout and squint his way through indistinct macho tough guy roles. This film finds him operating between those two poles. Wahlberg brings a certain intimidating energy to the role of Chace, successfully selling the image that this is a man who has experience with all sorts of things. At the same time, the script gives Wahlberg opportunities to turn up the volume and act like a tough guy. This is most clear during the moment when he's finally fed up with Getty and chews him out, which was obviously Wahlberg's Oscar clip moment. The former Marky Mark just isn't compelling when he's playing that note.

Even if he was a last minute replacement, Christopher Plummer still manages to steal the show for most of the movie. Plummer's J. Paul Getty is cankerous yet undeniably witty, throwing out piercing lines of dialogue at the people he perceives as inferior. (Which is almost everyone.) Plummer, of course, excels at this kind of character. Yet Getty is more than just a vicious old man. There's a humanity to the character, who does feel hurt by Gail's rejection of the family fortune, which is everything to him. He's surrounded himself with things, instead of people. When death finally comes for him, those same things are unable to bring him any comfort. Plummer dominates the film, the story being its most compelling when he is on-screen. It's hard to imagine Kevin Spacey, buried under old-age make-up, doing much better than that.

Plummer's late entrance into the film not only earned “All the Money in the World” most of its press, he also grabbed the film's sole Oscar nomination. The movie would later become notorious for another reason, when it became public knowledge that Mark Wahlberg made a million dollars for the re-shoots while Michelle Williams was only paid eighty dollars an hour. Which made the movie a rallying cry for the Time's Up movement. I'm not going to hold Hollywood's wretched gender politics against the movie though. “All the Money in the World” is too long and a little burdened with its own performances. It's also a fairly entertaining thriller, that keeps the audience pulled along through all the unexpected developments of the story, with two strong performances in its favor. [Grade: B]

Ridley Scott is currently 83 years old. IMDb currently lists him with eighteen different projects in development as a producer. Of those, he's attached to six as a potential director. Some of those proposed movies, like a long-gestating sequel to “Gladiator” or another “Alien” movie, are unlikely to make it out of the developmental phases. Even these titles are just a fraction of the projects for the director that have been announced or floated. The point remains that Sir Scott has to be among the busiest octogenarians in Hollywood right now. Just this year, he has two new releases planned for plum award season release dates. The first of which is “The Last Duel,” another medieval epic, and the second of which is “House of Gucci,” a sprawling generational story about family, greed, and crime. Both of those sound squarely within the Ridley Scott wheelhouse. 

At the end of a month devoted entirely to Ridley Scott movies, what's my final verdict on the director? Is he the great auteur he's sometimes hailed as? Or merely a reliably busy professional that has stumbled into some all-time classics? It's fair to say that Scott's prolific quality means he's made some forgettable, or otherwise unimpressive, movies over the years. While his visual style is usually pretty distinctive, the thematic through-lines in many of his films – the later ones especially – are not as rewarding. Yet you can't fault the director for always being ambitious. A Ridley Scott movie is always aiming for some big goals, usually big ideas too, even if the finalized film ends up being mediocre or a new classic.