ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (2017)

Rated:  R

STARS: Christopher Plummer, Michelle Williams,  Charlie Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
GENRE: Drama/Action-Thriller

I like a good thriller.  Because I know if the film is a little slow in the beginning with background stuff (which All The Money In The World is), it'll pick up later with the action scenes (which All The Money In The World does). So there's your review.

OH...you want more?  Cheeky bugger!!!

It's 1973 and John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), grandson of the then richest man in the world, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer--no relation), has been kidnapped off the streets of Rome. A ransom of 17 million dollars is being demanded for the teenager's safe return. Only problem is, the old tight-ass doesn't want to fork over one penny, even though it would be a drop in his bucket!  This naturally doesn't set well with Paul's mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), who will spend the entire film trying to save her child's life, with the help of former CIA operative Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), who has been directed by the elder Getty to figure out another way to rescue the lad without dipping into his precious coffers. Easy for him to say.

I might have been one of the few in the audience who could generate some empathy for the old guy. Few situations are ever black and white. Getty had stated: "I have fourteen grandchildren, and if I pay a penny of ransom, I'll have fourteen kidnapped grandchildren." He had a point. Not to mention that the family and the Italian police thought Paul might be faking his own kidnapping to get funds out of grandpa that he thought he deserved. J. Paul Getty was one of the foremost art collectors in the world, and I think it was what he said about art: that it never disappoints you like people do (he was married and divorced five times) that provided a hint in the direction of explaining the man as being deeper than what showed on the surface, though the movie never quite takes you there.

Christopher Plummer does a sterling (pardon the pun) job of turning J. Paul Getty into the man you love to hate--a turn made even more notable by the fact that it was done on short notice to replace Kevin Pervy...er...I mean Spacey.  Plummer and Michelle Williams--who's always right on the money--are what raise this film above your run-of-the-mill action/thriller.  Along with a collection of Italian thugs so authentic looking you can almost smell the garlic.

Grade:  B

JILL'S TAKE

Whether it's Michael Douglas' portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street ("Greed is good") or Christopher Plummer's turn in All The Money In the World, audiences love to see how the rich get richer. (And ultimately get screwed.) Although this movie lagged in spots, it held my interest 95% of the time. And I couldn't help musing that the recasting of 84-year-old Christopher Plummer as the tightwad tycoon was a stroke of pure genius. Kudos go out to screenwriter David Scarpa who managed to create a well-rounded portrait of this very complicated, power-driven art connoisseur.

Without giving too much away, I want to share what I felt was a wonderful twist: one of the sleazy kidnappers (played brilliantly by Romain Duris) begins to develop a relationship with his prisoner. At first, he's a typical Italian gangster, ready to do whatever it takes to get the boy's grandfather to pay the ransom. Over time, however, we see his attitude change. I know it's been done before in films but Duris' characterization was truly noteworthy. For you trivia buffs and acting hopefuls, I looked him up on IMDb and discovered the following: "Appealing actor Romain Duris is the exact example of those who arrived in the movie industry by chance, and to stardom without really desiring it. Discovered by a casting director while he was waiting in front of a high school in Paris, he was offered a role." (Some people have all the luck!)

If I were to nitpick about Money, it would be about young Getty's other siblings who appeared briefly and then completely disappeared. I would've like to have seen how they handled this horrific situation. Nothing major, mind you. But you don't introduce a family-in-crisis and then simply delete some of its members for expediency.

Beautiful score by Daniel Pemberton...breath-taking cinematography thanks to Dariusz Wolski. It's a movie well worth seeing.

Grade: B-

 

TED 2 (2015)

Rated:  R

STARS: Seth MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Morgan Freeman
DIRECTOR: Seth MacFarlane
GENRE: Comedy

From the flashy Busby Berkeley-esque dance number at the get-go, I had the feeling that Seth MacFarlane was going to pull out all the stops for Ted 2, and I wasn't wrong. The teddy bear that came to life one day (thumpety thump thump...thumpety thump thump--oh wait, that was Frosty) is back, with his favorite human pal, John (Mark Walhberg). And they are up to more of the same hijinks that made the original Ted a smash.

Ted has married his gum smacking sweetheart, Tami Lynn  (Jessica Barth), and now they want to have a child. But being as Ted isn't properly "equipped" for the job, John agrees to become a sperm donor. I'll spare you the details of the havoc John and Ted wreak at the sperm bank. Let's just say it takes the gag that everyone remembers from There's Something About Mary to its furthest extreme! When Tami Lynn turns out to be infertile, she and Ted decide to adopt. But during those preliminary proceedings, Ted is declared not to be a person, and therefore disqualified from obtaining a child.. (In an era when even corporations are persons, there's something egregiously unfair about that.)

The plot thickens, and Ted and John look for an attorney to represent Ted in court so he can be declared a person, and they find one in the person of young Samantha (Amanda Seyfried). She's inexperienced and smokes a lot of weed, and though she's not exactly Atticus Finch in the courtroom, she and Ted will have their day, waxing poetically about the struggles of the oppressed throughout history.

MacFarlane never lets the action or the plot get in the way of a good sight gag, which he drops in totally out of the blue, wherever and whenever, giving the film a kind of haphazard, devil-may-care, batshit crazy kind of feel, but you gotta forgive him anything if it makes you guffaw like Goofy...least that's the way I look at it. The gags are often dirty, or biting, with pop culture references galore, and he's taking aim at plenty of targets. Several star cameos, from Tom Brady to Liam Neeson, add to the fun and merriment.

Despite it all, MacFarlane knows how to make you open your fanny pack and fish around for that tissue at the end. Ted just seems so real at this point...in fact, I would say to any young person who might ask: Yes, Virginia...there is a Ted...he exists as certainly as political incorrectness and fart jokes...

You get the picture.

Grade:  A

JILL'S TAKE

Seth MacFarlane is definitely an acquired taste. It's easy to imagine some folks being deeply offended by his sophomoric sight gags and in-your-face humor. Fortunately, I am not one of these individuals. And anyone who chooses to see Ted 2 should know (from the first Ted and A Million Ways to Die in The West) that there'll be lots of cameos (One Tim didn't mention is Jay Leno), lots of profanity, and lots of out loud laughter.

Did I think the sequel was as good as the first one? No. Did I thoroughly enjoy it? Absolutely. The original concept of a toy teddy bear turning into Mark Wahlberg's buddy bear was brilliant. By the second version, Ted is still endearing – in a crude, wise-cracking way. But I felt some of the situations were forced, that MacFarlane (along with the other two screen writers, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild) was trying a little too hard to be outrageous. This was particularly evident with Donny, played with appropriate madness by Giovanni Ribisi. Hellbent on kidnapping Ted so he could steal his stuffing to produce more talking teddies, Donny's chase scene – peppered with comic book characters – was a little too over-the-top for me. Still, it didn't stop me from lapping up most of this campy cartoon of a movie.

Grade: B+

THE GAMBLER (2014)

Rated: R

Stars: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Jessica Lange

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Genre: Drama

Watching Mark Wahlberg as a once promising novelist turned college professor turned compulsive high-stakes gambler is like staring at some bratty child who won't eat his vegetables and will sit there at the dinner table and wait you out longer than you can, or would want to, wait him out. 

Wahlberg is Jim Bennett, an arrogant wise-ass who talks down to his students, and follows in the footsteps of James Bond (though infinitely less debonair ) by firing off sarcastic one-liners at the bad dudes who are about to beat his ass for not paying his debts. Bennett borrows from Peter (Korean mobsters) to pay Paul (black gangster) to pay John (Goodman), who gives another inspired performance as a loan-shark with a soft side, the only thing that explains why anyone would  issue a dime to such an obviously bad risk . 

Bennett comes from money, and doesn't know the value of a dollar--that's why he gambles away every last one he can get his hands on. Money is just a tool to feed the sick ego gratification he gets from proving-repeatedly-that he's a loser. Like most self-destructive people, the guy is angry. And it' so bottled up that the sarcasm seeps from every pore.  But we never see why he's angry. Where has life dealt him a bad hand? All we know is that his banking magnate grandfather (George Kennedy--who keeps his streak of being in every movie ever made alive here) kicks the bucket in the opening scene, and Bennett is left with a mother (Jessica Lange) who is also really pissed-off, but mainly at him, for being an incorrigible, irredeemable asshole. Are you getting the picture that, to me at least, this is one of the most unlikable protagonists to come down the pike in quite some time?  Which is unusual, because we can usually find SOMETHING about the main character in any film that we can root for. So this is either a one-dimensional turn from Wahlberg, or, as Pee-Wee Herman was fond of saying: I meant to do that.

The subplot revolves around a romance that's haltingly blooming with one of his students (Brie Larson), a brilliant writer in Bennett's estimation, who likes him maybe for seeing something in her she didn't recognize in herself?  Well, The Gambler doesn't work if you don't have multiple individuals who are rooting for this guy to make one big strike and win in the end (most of them so they can get their money back).

 I. on the other hand, am just rooting for something to show in his eyes that tells me he can snap out of it and become more than a petulant child sitting there grimacing at his Brussels sprouts.    

Grade:  B

JILL'S TAKE  

I guess assholes are not Tim's cup of tea. Me? I like 'em. And despite Mark Wahlberg's overdone, over-dyed hairdo, I was mesmerized by his total lack of fear -- and common sense. I haven't spent much time in Vegas, or around compulsive gamblers, but by the time The Gambler ended, I felt like I'd personally won and lost a shitload of shekels.

At the beginning of the movie, credit is given to the original film of the same name which starred James Caan (1974). I'm pretty sure I must have seen it but who remembers back that far? I did look up the cast, though, curious to see who played the John Goodman part: it was Paul Sorvino. Speaking of Goodman, I must warn any of you who are fat phobics to turn away when Goodman exposes his naked and roly-poly body in a steam room. (Apparently he's lost 130 pounds since this flick was filmed!)

What impressed me most was how original the time sequences were established. A number would flash on screen signifying the days this guy had left to pay his mounting debts. Then a musical interlude would set the mood and tone. Very, VERY effective. What impressed me least? The longest running sequence since Chariots Of Fire – when running was the whole point of the movie. In this case, I think Wahlberg just wanted to show the audience how in shape a guy can be at age 45.

Grade: B+

DATE NIGHT (PG-13)

Stars: Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg

Director: Shawn Levy

Created as a vehicle for two of our superstars of comedy, Date Night is a fairly enjoyable romp through familiar cinematic territory: The shady doings of politicians, unscrupulous police officers, and some hapless folks who inadvertently find themselves caught up in the shenanigans that ensue--somehow calling upon that inner wellspring of bravery and resourcefulness they didn't know they possessed until their lives were on the line, turning the situation to their advantage in the end.

Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are fun to watch as Phil and Claire Foster, an upscale New Jersey couple who try their best to keep their relationship from falling into that abyss of tedium and boring routine--out on a date to a pretentious, overpriced restaurant where they can't get seated, so they pose as the Tripplehorns, a couple who didn't show up to claim their reservation. This fairly innocent fudging of the truth--the kind of thing I suspect we've all done at one time or another--sets in motion a chain reaction of events that will have our couple dodging the bad guys (who've mistaken them for the real Tripplehorns--a shady couple who have some embarrassing and incriminating stuff on a flash drive that could bring down the local District Attorney were it made public) for the rest of the movie.

Good cops, bad cops, a crime boss who has bought off a bunch of them, (played by Ray Liotta, of course) and the ever shirtless Mark Wahlberg as a security expert the Fosters enlist as their ally, add to the harrowing fun of Date Night.

There's more potty-mouth in Date Night (most of it in hilarious context) than what you'd expect from a PG-13 rating, which is weird because many of the R-rated flicks I've seen lately have been rather tame in that respect, (as well as with the T&A) whereas several of the PG-13s have been unexpectedly raunchy. To which, conspiracy theorists, I'm attributing to an eventual melding of the two categories into something that would be called "RPG," or "PGR," or perhaps more accurately: B-I-T-S-- for BUTTS IN THE SEATS--which is the name of the game in Hollywood.

GRADE: B