Greed - Fame di soldi

Yes Steve Coogan is in this film but people need to just stop assuming it's going to be a comedy. Read all the negative reviews and they all complain about this not being a comedy.

It's not supposed to be a comedy. It's a mockumentary holding a mirror up to society allowing the rich to dodge tax and hire almost slave labour to sustain their empires, with people happily buying slave made products.

I went into this film without knowing anything about it and was pleasantly surprised.

So ignore the people moaning that this isn't a comedy and just watch it for what it actually it.

What kind of film is this supposed to be? A comedy? A polemic? A social satire? An expose? It seems to be trying to be all of these simultaneously - and the result is something of a mess.

Steve Coogan is good as a loathsome tycoon who doesn't care who he tramples underfoot as he amasses his fortune. David Mitchell is also good as his bumbling would-be biographer; and the preparations for Coogan's hedonistic birthday bash contain some fine comedy.

But the film also wants to condemn the way the fashion industry is built on the exploitation of workers in Sri Lanka and elsewhere (and everyone who has ever bought clothes in their local High St is complicit in this exploitation). This is a theme worthy of treatment, but to attempt to splice it with the comedic strand of the film jars dreadfully.

The plight of refugees crossing the Mediterranean is also touched upon. Again, this is something we should all be concerned about, but it can hardly be blamed on retail fashion moguls - so why try to shoehorn it into this film?

And as if there wasn't too much in the film already, we also get the filming of some sort of reality TV programme, the relationship of which to the main plot is far from clear.

They say that less is more. In the case of this film, more is less.

Greetings again from the darkness. "Greed for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works." Those words were part of the iconic speech from Gordon Gekko (an Oscar winning role for Michael Douglas) in Oliver Stone's 1987 film WALL STREET. Here we are 3 decades later, and there may not be a more tarnished word, attitude, or approach than 'greed', and filmmaker Michael Winterbottom re-teams with his "The Trip" collaborator Steve Coogan to deliver satire on today's ultra-rich.

The always entertaining Mr. Coogan stars as Sir Richard McReadie, also known in the media by numerous other names like: Greedy McReadie, McGreedy, The King of High Street, and The Monet of Money (a label he seemingly applied to himself). Sir Richard is apparently modeled after fashion mogul Sir Philip Green (owner of Top Shop), and with his fake tan and blinding white teeth caps, makes a pretty easy target for Winterbottom's bashing of the too-rich.

A loose structure to the film is provided by the contrast of the coordination and excess going into planning McReadie's upcoming 60th birthday toga bash on the Greek isle of Mykonos, and the official inquiry by Parliament into his questionable business practices. Scenes from the committee hearings are interspersed throughout the film, along with some flashbacks to young McReadie (played by Jamie Blackley) honing his negotiation skills. There is also McReadie's hired biographer Nick (played by David Mitchell), a spineless freelancer thrilled to have the job, despite his initial obliviousness to what McReadie is all about. Although Nick does uncover some of the cruel labor practices, the character seems to be a way for Winterbottom to poke at journalists simultaneously to his scalding the rich. Celebrities for hire also take shot to the bow.

Isla Fisher plays Samantha, McReadie's ex-wife, whose Monaco residence helps hide the family/ex-family fortune. The relationship between these two is not just creepy on the balance sheet, but plays out in ways apparently acceptable to the lifestyles of the wealthy. Asa Butterfield plays their overlooked and underappreciate son Finn, and the always fabulous Shirley Henderson plays Irish mother Margaret in such a way that we wish more of the movie was about her. McReadie's daughter Lily (Sophia Cookson) is pretty funny as she films her Reality TV show in the midst of her father's party preparation ... which includes Bulgarian workers building a replica of a Roman amphitheater to act as the site of a GLADIATOR reenactment - replete with a live lion (not a tiger)!

Sarah Solemani and Dinita Gohil play two of McReadie's key assistants, and provide us a glimpse of how real people struggle to work amidst such waste and ego and unrealistic expectations. McReadie kinda quotes Shakespeare, but we feel certain he's not a well-read man. Instead his talents are in bending a system and forcing others to acquiesce to his demands. The tabletop shell game he mastered as a parlor trick is really just a miniaturized version of his business empire ... trading one highly-leveraged enterprise for the next, while cashing in on the process.

Winterbottom's approach is often confusing and sometimes drifts towards mockumentary for flashbacks and interviews. It's an uneven comedy that works at times, and doesn't at others - not uncommon for satire. Coogan makes McReadie always fun (in a disturbing way) to watch, though the film never clicks better than the Keith Richards moment near the end. The anger-based acidic comedy satirizes what's happening in the real world, and tries to further expose how the mega-rich take advantage of the rest of us. Some well executed bits make this one worth watching, but really offers little in the form of insight or solutions. Instead it's just infuriating ... at least in the parts where we aren't laughing. We certainly don't laugh over the closing credits as real world statistics are provided regarding inequality and third world labor.

Some great performances, always great for me to watch Steve Coogan. he plays this so well. Isla Fischer is also worth a mention.

This is entertaining, funny but poignat in places. Thought provoking with a message throughout. Capitalism and the wealth divide.

Well worth a watch.

On the Greek island of Mykonos, British billionaire and fashion retail extraordinaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Coogan, in a role loosely inspired by Sir Philip Green) prepares to celebrate his 60th birthday. While preparations for a wild extravaganza commence, McCreadie is surveyed by Nick (David Mitchell), who has been tasked with writing his biography; a project that will hopefully salvage McCreadie's soiled reputation. Winterbottom's odd comedy is a satirical effort that examines the inequality present throughout the fashion industry. While it is evident that Greed is a film with a clear message to convey, it is somewhat frustrating to see it handled in such a clumsy manner. Greed tackles a myriad of themes, including wealth inequality, the refuge crisis and the superficial nature of reality television. Scattered throughout Winterbottom's screenplay are a wide range of characters, but very few of them actually feel fully realized. Coogan's McCreadie (an all-round unlikable man) doesn't even feel like a leading character in his own film, though Coogan makes do with the material he's given. David Mitchell is a welcome presence, for sure, and his portrayal of Nick, a mild-mannered, good man observing an otherwise seedy world within which he doesn't belong, results in one of the only likable characters in the film. Much of the comedy falls flat (save for a few chuckle-worthy one liners here and there), and the climactic scene takes a bizarrely brutal turn that feels tonally out of place with the rest of the picture. Greed certainly has good intentions, but the screenplay could have done with a few extra revisions to ensure a more cohesive structure. Mitchell is the standout here, but everything else is largely forgettable.