Greedy People movie review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt starrer aims for a ‘fargo’ effect but falls short

Stills from the film

Film: Greedy People (Lionsgate Play)
Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Traci Lords, Tim Blake Nelson, Uzo Aduba, Simon Rex, Nina Arianda
Director: Potsy Ponciroli
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 90 min.

Director Potsy Ponciroli's twisty tale about the violent goings-on in a small island town, is something like a Coen Brothers fete but this one is no ‘Fargo.'

Set on a small island town, this Fargo-like tale involves a wide array of characters. All of them though seem to be given to involuntary trigger popping and habitual immorality. The script ends up getting almost all its characters killed off. It's like taking out a card and seeing the domino effect happen.

The convoluted plot involves two dumb cops. Will (Himesh Patel), a freshly inducted cop, responds to an emergency call, misreads the code, believes a robbery is underway and nearly shoots a woman (Traci Lords) who is just simply going about her business in her kitchen. Seeing him popping a shot which misses her by inches, She gets enraged and attacks him, and in the ensuing scuffle, winds up dead.

Will's partner Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who was busy in an assignation with his married sweetheart at that time, decides to butt in…convincing Will to cover his tracks and blame the killing on a burglar - especially after they discover $1 million in cash in the house.

Then it turns out that the woman's husband, a rich shrimp dealer (Tim Blake Nelson), had already hired a hit man to murder his wife in order to marry his lover (Nina Arianda). A sleazy masseur (Simon Rex), his crazy mother, Will's heavily pregnant wife (Lily James), "The Irishman" an assassin for hire (Jim Gaffigan), all get in on the act. Needless to say, it seems like everyone is out to kill the other for reasons best known to them. They make killing look easy and inconsequential. The no-nonsense chief of police (Uzo Aduba), is basically this film's version of Marge Gunderson.

Director Potsy Ponciroli fails to pull off the satire - instead the script feels ham-handed with its many sub-plots and the narrative isn't stylized well enough to convince us about the escalating absurdities. The attempt at edgy dark comedy turns into one of nasty criminality. No one seems real here. It's a flawed treatment.

The cast is appealing, but the actors can't make a bad set-up with an inconsistent tone look good. Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt lend some class to the proceedings here. Ironically, the setting for this darkly comic attempt at cash grab is the South Carolina town of Providence. But that's no comfort either. The nonlinear screenplay uses flashbacks to reveal the involvement of unseemly characters. What follows is both predictable and inevitable. Ponciroli, directing someone else's script, basically borrows the ‘Fargo' template without delivering any effect.

The unconvincing coincidences, the lack of emotional heft, forgettable characters plague the narrative. This may not amount to a bad film by any measure, but it is not one that is thoroughly entertaining either.