All the Money in the World

The kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III, heir to his grandfather's multi-billion-dollar fortune, was one of the biggest news stories of the 1970s, but director Ridley Scott's account relies too much on melodrama and dispenses with large amounts of historical detail. The boy was held hostage for six months while his mother (Michelle Williams) pleaded with the family patriarch (Christopher Plummer) to pay for his safe return; he only relented when the ransom was significantly reduced to a figure within a tax-deductible threshold. Plummer (a late replacement for Kevin Spacey after filming had already wrapped) is hugely impressive as the ruthless, heartless tycoon, and there's strong support from Mark Wahlberg as his ex-CIA adviser, but Williams's supposedly distraught parent is never entirely convincing. The result is a workmanlike thriller that could have been much better if Scott had paid more attention to the truth and not settled for a sedentary, less involving version of events.