All the Money in the World (2017)

The true story of the Getty's, the kidnapping and how wealth and power usually overpowers love and human decency. All the Money in the World is a film for the age of ultimate greed, however, this is not a story that hasn't already been told and might I add, much better told. Ridley Scott does a fine job, however. He directs a dialogue driven film from an action director's perspective, which is much more visually pleasing. The scenes involving the kidnapping of Paul Getty are fascinating, cringe-worthy and at times quite brutal, including an ear slicing scene that is Reservoir Dog's worthy.

But let's face it, we all came here for one reason. How did Christopher Plummer do in the place of Kevin Spacey? Was this a rush job at the 11th hour, or did Plummer save the day and added his own unique touch to the role of J.P. Getty? I can report that the latter is thankfully true. This is Plummer's best performance since Beginners. He plays a fabulous rich SOB. One must wonder, though, how Spacey would have fared? What we now know about him, it wouldn't be too difficult for the audience to despise him. In fact, creatively, I would've kept Spacey... considering how much of a villain he is in real life. I feel like the audience would've had much more fun fearing him and rooting against him. But Plummer does it in spades and that's what really matters.

Other than the obvious, the other supporting roles are good, but not noteworthy. Michelle Williams is great here, but Mark Wahlberg is spectacularly miscast as Fletcher Chase. He plays Mark Wahlberg, period. It's exactly how you'd expect him to play this kind of character and it bogs this film down quite a bit. I kept thinking of him wandering around searching for Optimus Prime. That's a bad, bad thing.