The true story this film recreates could and should have made a crackling movie, but instead Ridley Scott delivers a serviceable film that hits all of its marks but feels rather bloodless on screen.
As pretty much everyone knows, Christopher Plummer was pulled in at the last minute to play J. Paul Getty, reshooting all of the scenes previously featuring Kevin Spacey in a performance we will now never see thanks to the sexual harassment scandal that emerged about him. Getty refuses to pay the ransom when his grandson is kidnapped, much to the anger and frustration of his ex-daughter-in-law, played by Michelle Williams in a performance that struggles to rise above the middle-brow film making. Mark Wahlberg is Getty's chief security man who's tasked with handling the situation and who eventually sours on Getty as he realizes what a cold-blooded monster he is. All of the performances are fine, but nothing about this movie really ever comes fully to life. Everything we're supposed to feel is telegraphed every step of the way, including the rather obvious moral that a life driven by the acquisition of money and stuff is bound to be an empty one. And the finale, which should be a nail biter, instead is clunky and awkward. Scott's direction in the rest of the film is uninspired but competent; his direction of the film's climax is just bad.
Grade: B-
