X
- 2020
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 44 m
- 2020
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 44 m
Summary Self-made British billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie's (Steve Coogan) retail empire is in crisis. For 30 years he has ruled the world of retail fashion – bringing the high street to the catwalk and the catwalk to the high street – but after a damaging public inquiry, his image is tarnished. To save his reputation, he decides to bounce bac...
Directed By: Michael Winterbottom
Written By: Sean Gray, Michael Winterbottom
- 2020
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 44 m
- 2020
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 44 m
Greed
52
5.6
Where to Watch
Summary Self-made British billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie's (Steve Coogan) retail empire is in crisis. For 30 years he has ruled the world of retail fashion – bringing the high street to the catwalk and the catwalk to the high street – but after a damaging public inquiry, his image is tarnished. To save his reputation, he decides to bounce bac...
Directed By: Michael Winterbottom
Written By: Sean Gray, Michael Winterbottom
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
52
38% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
53% Mixed
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
9% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
52
38% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
53% Mixed
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
9% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Coalesces into a thoughtful, pointed, at times deceptively profound look at how the rich get richer and, well, you know what happens to the poor.
Coogan brings his usual comic reliability to his characterization, as does Isla Fisher as the rich man’s predictably estranged wife, and they wring laughs from the material.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 User Ratings
5.6
25% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
69% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 User Ratings
5.6
25% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
69% Mixed
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
6% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
A savage and hilarious satire
We live in an era where wealth is distributed upwards and the gap between the haves and have-nots has become wider than ever. According to ****, the richest 1% of the world's population controls 45% of global wealth, whilst the poorest 64% of the population control less than 1% of the wealth. In 2018, Oxfam reported that the wealth of the 26 richest people in the world was equal to the combined wealth of the 3.5 billion poorest people. This is the milieu of Greed, a hilarious satire from prolific genre-hopping writer/director Michael Winterbottom. Examining how the rich get richer, the film focuses on a successful British clothing entrepreneur, and its bread and butter is the concomitant grotesquery that results when an individual has the same wealth as a small country. Mixing send-up and satire with more serious socio-economic points, Greed doesn't really do or say a huge amount that hasn't been done or said before, but it's entertaining, amusing, and undeniably relevant.
Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is one of Britain's richest men. The perma-tanned "self-made" billionaire is the owner of several clothing chains and is known as "the King of the High Street", although a less complimentary nickname is "Greedy" McCreadie. On the Greek island of Mykonos, the final (chaotic) touches are being put to McCreadie's Roman-themed 60th birthday bash – complete with mandatory togas, a fake coliseum, and a real, albeit somnolent, lion. Much of the story is told through the lens of McCreadie's "official biographer" Nick (David Mitchell), a classically-trained literature buff who drops quotes from Shakespeare and Shelley into everyday conversation, and who hates himself for agreeing to write a fawning celebration of McCreadie.
The idea that a billionaire could be so cut off from workaday reality as to stage a Roman-themed birthday party on a Greek island may sound far too on the nose, too ridiculously hubristic to say anything of any worth, too over-the-top to even function as satire. However, McCreadie is based on Sir Philip Green, chairman of the Arcadia Group, avoider of taxes, exploiter of the working-class, asset-stripper, and enemy of the #MeToo movement. Similarly, many of the details of McCreadie's ludicrous birthday are lifted verbatim from Green's very real 50th birthday celebrations in 2002 – when he flew 219 guests to Cyprus for a three-day toga party.
McCreadie, of course, is a hilariously despicable slimeball, a man who unironically feels hard done by when Syrian refugees show up on the (public) beach he's using for his birthday, and Coogan portrays him as not only narcissistic and void of conscience, but as a classless philistine – whereas Nick, for example, can quote Shakespeare and Shelley, McCreadie proudly gets his cultural know-how from BrainyQuote. However, for all his loathsomeness, McCreadie is a symbol for the system that gave rise to and sustains him; he's simply the result of an economy that takes from the poor and gives to the rich. For all his crass hubristic excess, McCreadie is neither an aberrant individual nor is he a criminal – he's a vulgar product of the system.
Aesthetically, the film employs a plethora of techniques, including non-linear editing, direct-to-camera addresses, YouTube videos to provide exposition, split-screen, fake news footage, and title cards. However, it's at its most effective when at its simplest, particularly in scenes involving the wonderful Dinita Gohil as Amanda, McCreadie's overworked PA. Her interactions with Nick provide the emotional core of the story, and their scenes are all simple shot/counter-shot editing and blocking. And by far the film's best sequence, which comes towards the end, is another simple setup involving Amanda and McCreadie, wherein the scene tells its story not through aesthetic bombast or even dialogue, but through the expression on Gohil's face. It's the moment during which Winterbottom drops all pretence of comedy and focuses on the more serious issues that have hovered at the fringes since the opening seconds.
If I were to focus on any one problem, it would be two underdeveloped subplots. A (staged) reality TV show subplot involving McCreadie's daughter Lily (Sophie Cookson) provides for some very funny individual moments, but it contributes nothing whatsoever to the main plot. Additionally, the fact that McCreadie and his ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher) are still in love with one another is a theme which never really goes anywhere, which is a shame, as it could have provided some much-needed character development for her and some shades of grey for him.
For better or worse, we live in an age where there are more billionaires than ever before, and Greed is a comedy about the excess and disconnect of such people. However, so too is it a cautionary tale, a reminder that just because we're removed from exploitation doesn't mean such exploitation isn't happening.
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This is a great movie to know the fashion industry in the UK. I learned a lot of things. Basically, this movie criticized greedy capitalists. Especially I saw huge criticisms of sweat factories in Sri Lanka. That was a good point. I laughed a couple of scenes. Steve Coogan did a great job.
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The film takes occasional stabs at comic grotesquerie, but it’s brought back to earth by an insistent docudrama seriousness.
Like Maximus, the hero who inspires the theme of its pivotal party, Greed will keep you entertained. But patchiness and occasional preachiness mar a clearly heartfelt message movie.
Michael Winterbottom (“The Claim,” “24 Hour Party People,” “Code 46”) is a wonderfully gifted and versatile director, so it comes as no small surprise Greed is such a thudding. one-note takedown of a fictional avaricious fashion mogul.
You’re left to wonder whether you’ve watched a freshman college course with laughs, or a failed comedy with a lecture surgically grafted on to it.
The film isn’t funny at all. It’s so didactic and dislikable that it took me a while to realize humor wasn’t its main goal.
An uneven comedy about an aggressive and amoral entrepreneur. We follow the life of Sir Richard McCreadie, played by Steve Coogan, from his days at prep school to his death. He cheats constantly and is never likable because he is always ready to take advantage of everyone from his employees to his family – anyone who crosses his path. Not savage enough to be satire, the film is entertaining (more or less) but its focus is too fuzzy to make the audience really care about anyone or what happens to them. Watch “The Trip to Italy” and “The Trip to Spain” instead. They are simply witty and entertaining without the failed attempts at satire and social commentary in this film.
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Among the many negative consequences of the pandemic there is also the disappearance of independent cinema: by now financiers, producers, distributors belong to the streaming giants and consequently can no longer be attacked, much less the political-economic system that legitimizes them, the neoliberal aka turbocapitalist one. Winterbottom's film does what little is still possible to do: it alludes to them, explains the difference between tax evasion and avoidance (allowed by a specific legislation), shows Monte Carlo as one of the many offshore havens not abroad in some remote Caribbean island but here in Europe, but then he is forced to take it out on an intolerably too small fish.
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I liked this film in terms of the cast and as a satire its ok but I wouldn't call it a laugh out loud comedy. Its more of a withering look at people who live to flaunt themselves and don't bother to think about the impact their life and lifestyle has on other people, more 'average joes'. Its a bit depressing to think that the super rich can be so self obsessed but then that's hardly news I suppose.
The setting (Greece) is nice, there are some pleasant panoramic shots shown and its a pretty watchable film. Its mildly amusing at times with some of the dialogue but its more effective in terms of showing the disdain such successful entrepreneurs can have (that's not to say that all are that way but some are). I thought it was interesting in terms of seeing so many British actors (Tim Key, David Mitchell, Stephen Fry etc.) in a foreign setting. Its a bit of a timely watch, what with refugee's featuring in the plot.
As a satirical film, its not bad. Its not what I'd regard a great film as such, with the main character not being entirely likeable but its ok. The ending is quite good, I felt - somewhat apt (I won't go into any details so as not to provide spoilers) and thought provoking with the statistics provided just before the credits roll. If your a fan of Steve Coogan and/or keen on such satirical films then yes, I'd recommend it, otherwise not so much.
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Production Company
Film4,
Revolution Films,
Sony Pictures International Productions
Release Date Feb 28, 2020
Duration 1 h 44 m
Rating R
Tagline The Devil is in the Retail
Awards
Newport Beach Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
