Parents Review All the Money in the World

Motion-picture show Review

If beingness rich solves some problems, it creates others—issues most people don't have to worry about.

Accept the bug of the Getty family, for instance.

In 1973, aging oil oligarch J. Paul Getty is the wealthiest man in the world. The first person always, we're told, to earn the title of billionaire.

Merely Getty's vast resources accept not made him a generous man. In fact, only the opposite: He guards every cent jealously, a paranoid financial savant who could take taught Scrooge a matter or two about hoarding silver and gilt.

Getty has always been more than preoccupied with mammon than family. His son is a dissolute drug addict. His grandson, Paul, one time joked that the merely way to go money out of his famously tight-fisted grandfather was to stage a kidnapping.

So when the teen goes missing in Rome and a ransom of $17 meg is demanded for his safe return, onetime CIA agent Fletcher Case—the man whom Getty tags to look into the situation—concludes information technology's a hoax.

It isn't.

Soon it becomes sickeningly clear that Paul is indeed in the clutches of men determined to claim their multimillion dollar ransom: the boy'due south ear arrives in an envelope at a Rome newspaper, with more of him promised if the money's not delivered shortly.

Paul'south mother, Gail, divorced his father and walked away without demanding a cent. She cannot pay, fifty-fifty though anybody believes she can. And J. Paul Getty refuses to exercise so. Later all, he has 13 other grandchildren. And what if kidnappers managed to nab them, too? How many millions might it cost him?

And so as Gail and Fletcher work with law to locate Paul before more than of the boy shows upward in the mail, the richest man in the world has to decide what he loves more: his coin or his grandson.

Positive Elements

This movie depicts Gail Harris equally a fierce, principled mother who's adamant to secure her son again. Fifty-fifty though Fletcher works for J. Paul Getty, he increasingly becomes Gail'south ally as he labors to locate Paul. Fletcher eventually confronts the oil businesswoman virtually his extreme selfishness and love of money.

Though the story that unfolds hither is a shocking one, it could be said that it delivers a cautionary tale well-nigh the corrupting influence of wealth.

Spiritual Elements

Getty is convinced he's the reincarnation of Roman Emperor Hadrian. He believes it so strongly that when the Italian government won't sell him the ruins of Hadrian estate, Getty has the vast circuitous recreated stone for rock in Southern California.

One of Paul's captors wears a cantankerous.

Sexual Content

Earlier his kidnapping, we see Paul talking to scantily clad Italian women who are obviously prostitutes. He has no real interest in them, though it's perhaps suggested he's had intimate experiences with like women in the past.

Paul finds his father (who's loftier on drugs) in the arms of another woman in Morocco. (We see their blank arms and shoulders.) That scene besides pictures a seemingly topless woman'due south blank back.

There'due south a verbal reference to Getty doing an interview with Playboy mag in 1965. He also talks about being able to recall, in the guise of Emperor Hadrian, all the times that he "made dear to his concubines." Nosotros see a nude, classical male statue. A woman's outfit reveals cleavage.

Vehement Content

Paul is roughly yanked into a van and has a hood thrown over his head. The boy desperately tries to convince his kidnappers not to cutting his eyes out afterward he sees two of the men without their masks. Ane of them besides says, "If she [Gail], doesn't pay, we mail her a finger." That doesn't happen, but something like eventually does.

Several of Paul'due south original kidnappers are shot by constabulary, but he's so transferred into the clutches of an even more ruthless Italian criminal kingpin before police tin rescue him. That man orders Paul'due south ear to be cut off because the ransom hasn't been paid, and the camera watches the gruesome deed as a doctor removes the appendage; Paul screams and squirms while being held down by multiple other men. We encounter a fountain of blood shoot up from the wound afterward, and Paul wears a bloody bandage the rest of the motion-picture show.

The boy also manages to light a fire in a field outside one of the buildings where he's kept as part of an escape plot. We hear that he once set his school on fire likewise.

Several people shoot clay pigeons with rifles on one of Getty'due south estates. Paparazzi repeatedly and recklessly chase Gail and Fletcher when they travel through Rome by motorcar. We see a corpse that's been burned beyond recognition. Gail hits Chase with a phone, bloodying his caput. One man clotheslines another who's running.

Crude or Profane Language

Well-nigh a dozen f-words, and four due south-words. God's name is misused at least twice. We hear one to iii uses each of "h—," "d–northward," "b–ch" and "b–tard." Someone exclaims, "Holy mother!" Nosotros encounter a crude hand gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Various characters drink booze (wine, beer, champagne) and smoke cigarettes throughout the motion-picture show. (And because this is a motion picture set in the '70s, we even meet people smoking on commercial airplanes.)

One of Paul'south kidnappers tries to get him to drink hard liquor before the dr. comes to cut his ear off. The man tries to convince Paul that it'll make the experience less painful. Said dr. uses a rag drenched in (patently) chloroform to knock Paul out, but he horrifically awakens before the "surgery" is complete.

Paul'southward father is shown stoned on hashish in Morocco. It'due south said that he once did drugs with Mick Jagger. By film's end, it's obvious that these illicit substances, combined with his alcoholism, have taken such a toll on the homo that he's nigh in a vegetative land.

Ane of Paul's captors smokes a marijuana joint.

Other Negative Elements

Getty initially balks at the bribe amount to save his grandson, nevertheless still pays millions of dollars for pieces of rare artwork besides as spending more of his fortune on multiple palatial estates in various countries. He sees his heirs primarily every bit finanicial liabilities: "A human who has children gives hostages to fortune," he opines.

[Spoiler Warning] Getty only relents and gives several meg dollars to the kidnappers when he finds a loophole that allows him to take a portion of the bribe as a tax deduction. The residual, he says, is a loan to his son that will have to be repaid with involvement. Elsewhere, Paul manages to escape once and thinks he's safe at a police section in a minor boondocks. Merely the police officer there returns him to his fell kidnappers.

Getty delivers a monologue about why he loves possessions more than than people. He says people are often "parasites." And so he adds, "That'southward why I like things. … The are exactly what they appear to be. The never change. They never disppoint. There's a purity to things that I've never found in another human beingness."

Nosotros encounter a homo's back as he urinates exterior. Someone else squats in alpine weeds (nothing is quite shown, though we exercise glimpse him begint to pull his pants downwards) to defecate.

Conclusion

All the Money in the World presents J. Paul Getty as a human who views every attribute of his life—including family relationships he insists that he values—through an economical filter. "You see, everything has a price. The great struggle in life is coming to grips with what that price is," he tells someone. Nosotros also hear him say, "There's very picayune in life worth paying full price for," as well as, "Seventeen million? That'southward an atrocious lot for such a young male child."

This tragic morality tale unpacks how one stingy man's unfathomable riches almost destroyed his grandson. This is not a story of nuance, though Christopher Plummer (who replaced Kevin Spacey after the latter was defendant of multiple sexual improprieties) certainly plays Getty to the dastardly hilt. Instead, it's a story built on graphic symbol contrast: Getty's greed vs. Gail'south generosity.

Getty believes he and members of his family are fundamentally unlike from others. "To be a Getty is an extraordinary thing," the old human tells young Paul. In contrast, Gail tells a police officer, "I'thousand non a existent Getty. I never was. I'm an ordinary person."

But … she's not. Indeed, Gail's life is inextricably intertwined with the riches of the human she loathes. And his riches are the reason for her poor son's abduction and his torturous treatment.

Ultimately, director Ridley Scott delivers a hauntingly graphic delineation of the destructive capacity of money. It's the kind of movie that might prompt y'all to call back, "Maybe existence rich isn't all it's cracked upward to be afterwards all." Then again, any number of biblical parables deliver the same lesson …and much less grotesquely.

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Source: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/all-the-money-in-the-world-2017/

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