Greedy People

Police Officer Will Shelley (Himesh Patel) and his very pregnant wife Paige (Lily James) are new to an island community. It's Will's first day at work. He accidentally kills a housewife and finds a load of cash. His partner Officer Terry Brogan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) suggests stealing the cash and faking a robbery homicide.

I have a couple of issues with the money. First, real thieves would never leave the cash with another thief. Will should demand his share right away and hide it himself. Second and more confounding, I don't know how Paige got the cash to the hospital. Did no one ask what's in that plastic bag? It seems highly unlikely. This is nowhere Coen Brothers level, but there is still some good dark humor crime chaos.

There will be nothing like Fargo anymore. Even like Ozark. Risky scripts in general are dead. I was expecting something risky here, but after watching the first 30 minutes, I noticed I was wrong.

First, the script is predictable, so consequently the movie is weak. Ending is a joke. I do not know why producers and directors do the same kind of movie all the time. To add, they think some decisions are clever, and obviously they're not.

Second, acting here is the best because of one person. JGH does a masterclass here. All the other cast are just ok.

Last, settings and camera work are great too. I have enjoyed the rural aura.

So, if you have watched Fargo and/or Ozark, the movie Greedy people is just a cheap version of it. Think about it. Nothing great here, just empty entertainment.

Greedy People is a black comedy clearly inspired by the Coen brothers as its colourful cast of characters squabble over a bag of money without communicating to one another, leading to disastrous results. It's obviously not as well done as its inspirations, especially since the shift from quirky comedy to thriller isn't smooth but it remains twisty fun. The humour is mostly front-loaded and the biggest shocks come towards the end.

It starts off as a two-hander between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Himesh Patel, who have a suitably awkward rapport and Gordon-Levitt's washed up cop who spends his days learning mandarin and playing his own music is definitely the highlight of the whole film. Lily James takes control for a chapter, grappling with what she's doing effectively and Uzo Aduba is the unwavering moral centre in the vein of Marge Gunderson.

Potsy Ponciroli's direction waits until over 20 minutes in to drop the title which works beautifully and the most serious moments taking place in torrential rainfall makes those scenes look so good. The chaptered structure also works with it having a fairly big cast who all do their own things and the film has a real talent for executing those characters. Jordan Lehning's score has a fittingly quirky nature as well which disappears in the second half.

After watching Greedy People, it feels like the kind of film that made you believe there was more in store, from its pulpy premise. The keyword here is "made you believe." Unfortunately, the promise ends at being thoroughly engaging and not much else. You already know from Act One that none of the characters are likeable, trustworthy-and that would've been totally fine if it were only meant to be a harmless comedy. The film gets darker with each passing scene, and the humour basically transitions into a standard thrill-fest. Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts in a good show, and so does Lily James (did anyone else notice how she ate from the same spoon she fed her dog with?). The rest are functional, playing their respective roles without going overboard-it was still hard to buy into Himesh Patel as a cop.

I really wanted to believe there was more to one particular angle (revealing it would be spoiler-ish) about "respecting borders." That had the potential to really up the comedy quotient, yet it's not even explored. The ending also feels rushed (i.e. For a 1h 52m flick), with a resolution that just doesn't hold a lot of weight. There are a lot of coincidental happenings in the third act, making the plot threads easier to tie up sans emotional heft. A film like this needs the deep, character-driven approach (which it tries to some extent)-where one bad decision really wears down the leads. Not a bad film by any measure, though you'd wish there was better detailing to the key characters.

5 stars is typically the minimum IMDB rating for a movie I will consider watching. I was going to give this 5 stars when it was 95% over, but the ending was good so I bumped it up to a 6. I'm surprised Gordon-Levitt agreed to be in this film. It had a low budget, 'B' movie type of feel, something that would go straight to streaming only, or a TV movie. Not bad, but not the quality I typically associate with him. It just felt cheap. I'm not sure if it was the acting, flimsy dialog, the screenplay or the somewhat predictable series of events. But movie just seemed a bit goofy. It was decent, held my attention, but seemed like it was missing something. I do appreciate that it was light hearted and had a pretty good ending. The ending was probably the most realistic part of the whole film. It's rare in Hollywood to have an ending where everyone got what they deserved, albeit an extreme version of justice.