Review of All the Money in the World (2017) by Movie F — 29 Mar 2018

John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) the young heir to his grandfather's multi-million business enterprise ends up getting kidnapped by terrorists. Despite the desperate pleas of his mother Gail (Michelle Williams), J.Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), his aforementioned grandfather will not pay the ransom required for his release. As time starts running out for Paul III, Gail is forced to rely on the help of a sympathetic deal-breaker (Mark Wahlberg) in order to get her son released...

Say what you will about Ridley Scott's recent films, but one has to respect this veteran's skill at handling this film's infamous post-production problems. Based on the 1973 kidnapping of billionaire tycoon J. Paul Getty's grandson and the tense negotiations that led to Getty rejecting his own grandson's safety for his wealth, All the Money in the World had already been filmed and completed with Kevin Spacey originally cast as the contraversional billionaire. One Weinstein-style career-ending scandal later, with Ridley Scott spending millions to reshoot entire scenes with Christopher Plummer taking on Spacey's role, it's amazing how seamless the film transitions between the original footage and the reshot version, as Plummer is absolutely fantastic and manages to give this character a greater sense of sarcastic cruelty than Spacey ever could have done in that unconvincing makeup from the early traliers.

Much like The Martian from two years ago, All the Money in The World even when not taking Plummer into account, still manages to be one of Ridley Scott's better films with it's skill in creating tension in the scenes in which Paul III has to deal with living with terrorists and the gearing acting from both Michelle Williams's and a suprisingly good Mark Wahlberg's characters as they try to deal with the situation.

Overall, despite some poor timed comedic moments and the fact that this film would be more remembered for the Spacey incident rather than the actual film itself, All the Money in The World still manages to be a tense and gripping thriller and a great start to 2018.