Ridley Scott’s plodding biographical drama tells the story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and his attempts by his mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), to get his rapacious billionaire grandfather, J Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer, no relation), to pay the ransom.
It is my favourite thing when movie titles appear as dialogue in films, so imagine my glee when Roman Duris’s kidnapper, Cinquanta, calls up Gail and sneers down the phone in his best Italian accent: “Get it from your father-in-law, he has all the money in the world.” Based on John Pearson’s 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J Paul Getty, the film is obsessed with the concept of wealth and its accumulation. “There’s a purity in beautiful things that I’ve never been able to find in people,” says Plummer’s Getty, whose cheapness is as much a plot point as his wealth. It doesn’t make for particularly thrilling viewing until the film’s final third, which sees the kidnappers beginning to get as annoyed as the audience is about the dragged-out ransom plotline. There’s a nasty scene of an ear being severed and a quite good car chase that get things moving, but it’s a slog to get there.
Distractingly, the film was originally shot with Kevin Spacey as Getty, who was replaced by Plummer after facing allegations of sexual misconduct in late 2017. An extravagance perhaps to reshoot Getty’s scenes, though cheaper than the price Sony might have had to pay regarding the critical fallout. It’s impossible to watch without imagining Spacey in the role, or at least looking for the joins in the film.
