All The Money In the World (Dir. Ridley Scott, 2h 13 m)

 And thus another year of cinema watching begins, with a film whose off (and indeed on) camera history seems as salient as the subject it covers-at the centre of All the Money in the World is a discussion of power, and powerlessness, only heightened by its 11th hour recasting of the thoroughly dislikable J Paul Getty, from the now disgraced Kevin Spacey to Christopher Plummer. It is Getty's fortune, what it signifies and indeed what it cannot buy that becomes the focus of this riveting, if somewhat overlong dramatisation of the events around the kidnapping and ransoming of his grandson, Paul Getty III.

At the centre of the film, without a doubt, is Plummer himself-whilst it is easy to see some elements that have potentially drifted through from Spacey's now deleted performance, there are nuances that one cannot help but assume are from Plummer himself. One cannot imagine, for example, Spacey's performance having anything close to the surprising warmth that scenes between the younger Paul in flashback scenes, and Plummer's patriarch, posess. Yet, at the same time, there is an iciness, and indeed a utter darkness to his portrayal-particularly in the scenes where Plummer is forced to consider the ransom for Paul, there is a chilling practicality, a quasi-Randian objectivity to his refusal to pay, a weighing of the assets he has against the value of his life, regarding his bloodline as an asset for him to utilise as he wishes, to bargain and which is rightfully his.

There is something altogether frightening about Getty's preference for things that will not betray him, that will retain their value. There are indeed shades of Charles Foster Kane in the later scenes, of an old, bitter man in a dark house, bitterly gaining value that he cannot bring himself to spend, epitomised in his final scene that echoes Kane's demise, cradling a painting, his "beautiful child" rather than the grandson his money could have protected.

At the opposite polarity of the film is Paul's mother, Gail, ably played by Michelle Williams as a warm sympathetic figure, at the centre of a media storm, and torn between the power and influence her relation to the Gettys should afford her, and her struggle to keep her beloved children in her custody, even at the price of the substantial fortune that she could have made relinquishing this to their drug-addled father, played (in a rather unflattering light) by Andrew Buchanan. All the Money in the World, thus, pivots between the distant, cold Getty, to whom everything (and indeed everyone) is an asset to him, and the emotive Gail, whose relationship, and love for her son is priceless.

In short, Scott makes a comment, a critique not only on the massive accumulation of wealth by the super-rich but on their inherent greed-for all the money in the world, it is Getty's inaction, his cruelty, his avarice that undoes him as a man, valuing the ticker-tape that spools and gathers in many of many of Plummer's scenes, more than his own flesh and blood. For all the talk of the Getty family being special, somehow inhuman, or super-human, Getty treats them like chess-pieces, assets to be moved around, whilst Gail, despite her money, simply cannot put a price on her family. It is this, thus, that drives the film, to great effect

This is not to say that All the Money in the World is a flawless film-indeed, the main flaw remains Paul himself, or more correctly, how the film treats his imprisonment-one could have focused an entire film on his captivity, his attempts to escape, his treatment, his fear of death, his growing friendship with his chief captor,  Cinquanta (a sterling and surprisingly empathetic performance from Romain Duris) and fading belief in his grandfather, and finally his reunion with his mother, and the aftermath of his ordeal. When Scott lets the camera rest upon Paul, whose exceptional performance by Charlie Plummer is every bit as good as the film's main leads, we find a boy frightened by his ordeal, abandoned and alone. Yet Scott, much as Getty does, often cuts away from him to other, seemingly more important scenes-the film as a result, suffers from a degree of pacing and lack of focus, particularly around the film's overly baggy, and somewhat repetitive middle. Mark Walberg's former Secret Service agent, Chase, is similarly under-utilised in this middle-third, as the film spends far too much time globetrotting as Gail and Getty attempt to thrash out a deal whilst the stakes grow ever higher, but even elsewhere in the film, he often seems like a character left with little to do.

Neverthless, All the Money in the World, for much of its runtime is an extremely well told, character driven, and utterly gripping story, a rumination of power and wealth, and the impact of both on a family in crisis, topped by a spectacularly chilling perfomance by one of the elder statesmen of screen. For that, All the Money in the World is a perfect film to start 2018 with

Rating: Highly Recommended