It is difficult to fathom the emotional turmoil parents have to endure when their child is missing. In the case of "All the Money in the World," it is a 16-year-old kid who is kidnapped for a ransom demand. There are 8 million stories of kidnapped kids but this one is John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), the grandson of the richest man alive at that time - the notoriously frugal billionaire John Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer).
The 16 year-old kid is wandering the streets of Rome at 3 am, near the Piazza Farnese, and is kidnapped by some captors and thrown in a van. News reaches Paul's mother, Gail (Michelle Williams) who, of course, calls her father-in-law to help pay the $17 million ransom. Mr. Frugal Man decides it is a no-go, sensing this is a ploy by her grandson to get money and live off of it. The billionaire's own son (Andrew Buchan) became a helpless drug addict and no longer secured in an enviable position working for Getty Oil. Not that Mr. El Cheapo doesn't love his grandsons - he does - but not at the expense of employing financial arrangements. The masked captors are from Calabria and they are part of an Italian crime organization. After months of keeping Paul captive, the captors grow restless and it results in the chopping off of body parts and mailing them to newspapers. Since mo deals are made to deliver the ranson, adding more consternation to Paul's mother, other methods must be employed. Chace (Mark Wahlberg), a former secret agent who also works deals for Getty Oil, asks around through his past contacts to see who has Paul and where.
"All the Money in the World" is all the more telling in that it is based on true events resulting in later tragic outcomes omitted from this film. Still, no matter how much truth there is here in the ransom details, it is Christopher Plummer's icy cold billionaire that really rattled my nerves. Here is a man of considerable wealth who can't spend any of it, only in investments and tax deductibles. The raw nerve of this man's frugality is in lowering the ransom to almost a sheer million bucks with certain provisions - the main one being that Gail's ex-husband gets custody of the kids and the ransom will be a tax deduction! This made me so angry that I wanted to strangle the grandfather - have you no humility, sir? Only Chace gets to confront the old man who is still devoted to his business transactions. The godawful sonovagun is a ruthless businessman, nothing more.
There is a consistent line of unbreakable tension in Ridley Scott's assured direction and Claire Simpson's crisp editing. There is gravity in a strange performance by Michelle Williams, who tries her best to maintain composure despite trying to cry and always looking away (not sure I've ever seen Williams look and feel so remotely and emotionally broken down before). Mark Wahlberg gives his agent character a familial ring of truth - a man more devoted to helping the family than helping his employer. Charlie Plummer (no relation to Christopher) plays the typical teenager who uses his smarts for his first escape - you feel for the kid who has no idea why these events took place though he had always joked about being kidnapped. And, finally, there is Christopher Plummer (replacing Kevin Spacey) as Getty - a tough man to like or care about yet the titanic actor knows how to make you feel contempt for him and still find him watchable. You feel the hatred for him and his greediness in your veins.
