Movie Reviews

Ridley Scott’s ‘All The Money In The World’ will probably forever be known as the movie that featured Kevin Spacey up until a month before the release date. Which is when accusations of Spacey’s sexual misconduct surfaced. Scott then decided to delete all traces of Spacey’s presence and reshot the affected scenes with Christopher Plummer in the role.

Apart from that though, ‘All The Money In The World’ is a decent thriller about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty’s grandson back in 1973. Something that- on paper at least - must have seemed like a kidnapper’s wet dream seeing as John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer – not related to Charlie) was at that time the richest man on earth.

If it was up to young John Paul Getty’s mom Gail (played by Michelle Williams), the ransom would be paid in a heartbeat. But she didn’t have any money left after divorcing the old man’s drug addicted son and subsequently declining Getty family funds in exchange for keeping custody. Which meant she had to deal with the elder Getty, who was a total cheapass who would rather do his own laundry while staying at a five-star hotel just to save a couple of bucks. So instead of simply paying the $17 million dollars, he treated his grandson’s kidnapping like any other business deal he could haggle on.

Ridley Scott paints the whole thing in beautiful 70ies hues while Christopher Plummer and Michelle Williams are both a pleasure to watch, the former as one of the least likeable characters in recent history and the latter as the distraught mother who’s being torn between making sure she gets her son back in one piece while also having to deal with the old man’s wiles. Unfortunately, the two-hour running time proves to be a bit much and Mark Wahlberg as Getty’s business manager could have been cut out along with Spacey’s scenes, because he hardly makes an impression.