Greedy People (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Follows the residents of a small island town who must navigate a sensational murder and the discovery of a million dollars, a series of increasingly bad decisions upend the once peaceful community.

My Take – Like many cinema auteurs, filmmakers Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, known collectively as the Coen brothers, have become famously known for their aesthetic, style and quirky characters. Something which easily distinguishes some of their excellent works like Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), No Country for Old Men (2007), True Grit (2010) among others.

Making them a source of inspiration for a generation of upcoming filmmakers.

The latest to walk out of their institute is this sophomore effort from director Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) and writer Michael Vukadinovich (Rememory) that wears its creative debt to the Coen brothers blatantly.

It is even set in a small town and includes a wide array of characters, nearly all of whom prove to be either gleefully immoral or just plain dumb, and delights in piling up the their bodies in near-slapstick fashion. But though it has its own twists and turns that’ll likely keep viewers guessing as the story unfolds, it is also minus the special sauce that made the Coen brothers helmed features such great entertainments.

Mainly, the crime comedy lacks the brazen stylization required to allow for the escalating absurdities and plethora of unnecessary subplots.

Sure, there are aspects to enjoy and is never a painful experience, and yet still, by the end, there’s no escaping the sense that somewhere along the way the film simply went off the tracks and kept plunging down further. While the impressive ensemble bring in genuine efforts, the script and execution fail to fulfill its considerable ambitions.

The story follows Will (Himesh Patel), a rookie cop who moves to the small East Coast town of Providence, all in order to earn a living in a quiet place and support his pregnant wife Paige (Lily James). His first day on the job even offers a series of encouraging signs, as his new partner Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) ensures him that the sleepy island offers minimal danger in return for accepting the lack of excitement.

Their first ride along offers little more than scenic views, free coffees, and instructional CDs that teach Mandarin, until Terry decides to make a brief stop to fornicate with his married Chinese mistress.

It is during his partner’s extensive sex break that Will receives a dispatch that he mistakenly believes to be a burglary call. His confusion with the department’s numerical system masks the fact that it’s actually a report of indecent exposure — which, tragically, doesn’t stop him from barging into the home of the wealthiest woman (Traci Lords) in town and inadvertently killing her.

And when Terry arrives at the scene, he’s all too ready to throw his new partner under the bus — until he stumbles upon the $1 million in cash that was conveniently hidden at the scene.

The two circumstantial partners decide to stage a fake murder in order to split the money, which quickly attracts the ire of the wealthy seafood mogul Wallace Chetlo (Tim Blake Nelson) who thought he was leaving the money as payment for The Colombian (Jose Maria Yazpik), a hitman he hired to kill his wife, so he can finally be with his Evangelical Christian mistress Deborah (Nina Arianda).

Eventually, nearly everyone on the island gets ensnared in the plot, including a sleazy masseur Keith (Simon Rex) whose services include those of the sexual variety, another killer for hire called The Irishman (Jim Gaffigan), and the no-nonsense chief of police Murphy (Uzo Aduba).

What follows isn’t so much predictable as inevitable, and yet it feels like a missed opportunity on director Ponciroli’s part. There are double-crosses, fluid allegiances, and, as we discover throughout the film, no one’s life is sacred or safe.

Unfortunately, the proceedings become increasingly tiresome the more the characters are killed off, with the result that despite an impressive cast, the film comes to feel like a non-compelling Coen brothers rip-off. The fractured narrative style doesn’t illuminate much in terms of story. Nor does the sympathy such focus creates for certain characters aid the atmosphere of cold, comic detachment that the film is striving for.

Here, screenwriter Mike Vukadinovich works hard for a black comedy vibe and sometimes succeeds. But more often than not, you can feel the strain as the film clumsily attempts to blend graphically brutal violence with deadpan humor. Its title cards also annoyingly list their favorite quotes from the upcoming scene, a gesture that does little more than spoil the punchlines of what could have been solid jokes.

Performance wise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s electrifying buffoonery is an easy highlight of the ensemble crime comedy. He steals the show as crass and dim-witted cop Terry, whose corruption can’t overcome his utter lack of ambition. Following him closely is Lily James who is especially fascinating here, because she gives an intense, raging and terrified performance that stays more constant than the tone of the screenplay.

Himesh Patel keeps it simple by playing it straight, while Uzo Aduba does well in her limited screen time. Simon Rex once again shows off his sleazy charm. In other roles, Tim Blake Nelson, Nina Arianda, Traci Lords, Joey Lauren Adams, Jose Maria Yazpik and Jim Gaffigan are decent in their supporting roles. On the whole, ‘Greedy People‘ is a lackluster crime comedy that is unable to deliver on its lofty ambitions.