Lean on Pete

First Hit: A wonderfully acted film about a young boy having to raise himself. 

The sixteen-year-old Charley (Charlie Plummer) is a great kid. He takes care of himself and his father Ray (Travis Fimmel) who, although capable of working, is shown to imbibe in drinking and likes messing with women, married women as well.

What Charley depends on is that his father is there. His father also teaches him a view of life, which is homespun philosophy. There is one bit when he explains why waitresses are the best women in the world, that's true to his view of the world.

Charley's mother left him because she was great one moment and horrible and mean the next. During a drunken fight with his father, she left for good. His father paints his mother as bipolar.

Charley has not heard from is mother in nearly 8 years and he longs for her and finds solace and friendship with Del (Steve Buscemi) a horse trainer and one of his horses Lean on Pete. Del is in the downside of his career but he pays Charley well for doing work like walking Pete and cleaning out the stables.

Del's friend and part-time jockey Bonnie (Chloe Sevigny) also befriends Charley.

When Charley's dad dies because of a wound he receives from an irate husband, he becomes focused on finding his mother.

This story evolves more and Charley is put through some very difficult situations with Del, Bonnie, and Pete. But his focus is clear, he loved his dad, he wants to find his mother and he loves Lean on Pete.

The scenes of Charley and Del are wonderful. Del being crusty and set in his ways get softened a bit with Charley. Scenes of Ray and Charley were also both sweet and poignant. The pictures of the open land when Charley was walking to Wyoming were devine.

Plummer was fantastic. He's a great young actor and embodied the fear of his life falling apart and his will to survive in an amazing way.  Fimmel was strong as the father who took on the responsibility of raising his son alone and who wanted the freedom to live a single life. Buscemi was outstanding as the crusty difficult soft-hearted horse trainer. The scene where he tells Charley to get some eating manners was priceless. Sevigny was strong as the jockey who tried to teach Charley that horses cannot be pets. Steve Zahn does a nice turn as the homeless Silver. Andrew Haigh both wrote and directed this film with a fine hand at creating characters that made this film work.

Overall: There were heartbreaking scenes in this film that made me really pause and think about the multitude of ways people are raised.

All the Money in the World

First Hit: An interesting and slow moving detailed story giving light as to why it took so long get John Paul Getty III released.

I was curious about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III (played by Charlie Plummer) when it happened. He was imprisoned by Italian mob kidnappers for almost 6 months before he was released.

At age 16 and part of the wealthiest family on earth at the time, the kidnappers thought this would be an easy way to extort $17M dollars from the Gettys. The kidnappers believed that because this amount of money was small pittance to J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), the boy’s paternal grandparent, it would be an easy score.

However, as the film points out, J. Paul Getty had no intention to pay any amount for anyone in his family that was kidnapped for ransom. J. Paul believed that people were not reliable and that the only things that were reliable were physical things, like paintings, buildings, sculptures, and other such things. The man was a focused miser.

When the kidnappers contact John Paul’s mother Gail Harris, she said she had no money and couldn’t pay the ransom. Her former husband John Paul Getty II (Andrew Buchan) was a drug addled and addicted person. He was little and no use to either his former wife Gail or his father J. Paul.

Paul assigned Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to find his grandson and help control Gail. However, the persistence of the kidnappers was extraordinary and only after sending Gail one of John Paul’s ears did J. Paul decide to assist a little.

The scenes inside J. Paul’s home was very reflective of his miserly ways. Lights were kept low and the coldness of the interior rooms was a perfect representation of the coldness in his heart and the disdain he had towards his family. The ultimate knife in the heart moment was when he finally agreed to spend some money to free his grandson, but he wanted full and complete custody of all Gail’s children and would only spend an amount that was tax deductible to free the boy.

The oppressive and obnoxious paparazzi were properly represented and displayed the low life jobs and intentions they make money from. The cold heartedness of the kidnappers and the obedience of their womenfolk was sad to witness. I kept wondering where was the compassion and the passion for which Italians are also noted?

Williams was strong in this role. Her intelligence and clear focus of what her priorities were was signified the difference between her and the family she married in to. Wonderful performance. Wahlberg was good as the man who wanted to serve both the man who paid him, J. Paul, and the needs of Gail. Christopher Plummer was fantastic. Although I occasionally wondered how the original actor, Kevin Spacey, would have done the part, Plummer’s physical presence, age, and acting abilities were sublime. Charlie Plummer was good as the privileged kidnapped grandson. Romain Duris as one of the abductors, Cinquanta, was excellent. He realized over time that he cared about John Paul’s welfare. David Scarpa wrote the script. The story and storyline was excellent but the execution by director Ridley Scott was un-inviting which made it difficult to care about the characters.

Overall:  This film was more interesting than engaging and I must commend Scott for the seamless way he replaced Spacey with Plummer in a month’s time.

The Dinner

First Hit:  Could have been more interesting and watchable without the distractions.

The previews had led me to believe that this might be a strong film about two estranged couples having dinner resolving an issue involving their sons. However, it seemed to be mostly a deep dive into Paul Lohman’s (Steve Coogan) mental illness and how his family works around it.

Paul and his wife Claire (Laura Linney) are meeting his brother Congressman Stan Lohman (Richard Gere) and his wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall), for dinner at a very exclusive restaurant. Paul does not want to go, and we see him fade in and out of being present with what is going on. He is fascinated with the battle of Gettysburg.

Throughout the film, the director lobs us into Paul's fantasies, his issues with teaching students, and difficulty staying with and on one rational thought and discussion. Not that this wasn’t warranted to understand Paul’s state of mind, but that it did this so much and that the loud distorted sounds used during some of these scenes was difficult on my ears, and very distracting to the story.

All of this gets thrown into this dinner, where Stan gets interrupted by his aid to help get votes on a mental health bill he’s created. Each of the dinner guests, occasionally gets up and leaves the table for 10 or more minutes. The service, although exquisite, gets broken up by the transient way the dinner guests sit and leave. When a conversation starts at the table, it gets railroaded by Stan leaving to deal with a legislative issue, or Paul’s rants, or Claire and Katelyn’s attempts to settle the feuding brothers.

We are given additional hints at Paul's inabilities to deal with life when we learn that Claire had cancer and Paul struggled to visit his wife and take care of their son Michael (Charlie Plummer). Stan and his first wife Barbara (Chloe Sevigny) tried to intervene in Paul’s difficulty but was rebuffed. Stan and Barbara had two kids of their own Rick (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) and Beau (Miles J. Harvey) who Barbara and Stan adopted. Despite the broken relationship between Stan and Paul, the boys hung out together.

The subject that finally gets fully aired is that Michael lit a homeless person on fire while Rick watched. Beau threatened to make their murder public which will ruin the boy’s lives and Stan’s run for governor. We learn that Paul was not informed when it happened and he’s upset, Stan wants to turn the boys in and the mothers’ want to keep it quiet because the police have not figured out who was responsible for the death. They hope the event will be forgotten by the public.

As I previously stated, I really disliked the myriad of segues into Paul’s psychosis. I disliked that there was so little direct conversation around the dinner and only when the group goes into a small private room at the restaurant that there was any real discussion. I disliked the sound track of noises during Paul’s altered states.

However, I did like the dialogue that came up around being truthful and paying attention to one's conscious. Additionally, questions about right action and how best to keep family together were also very interesting. Overall, I thought the acting was very strong.

Coogan was amazing in his portrayal of a mentally ill man who could, at times, be very clear and wonderful. Linney was clearly strong as well. Her support and ability to calm Paul down and keep him somewhat present was very good. Gere was excellent as a congressman who also discovered he had to start showing up to his family. Hall was outstanding. Her big scene was telling Stan how she’s the one who has held his family together, raised boys, and showed up for and to him every day, was perfect. Plummer was strong as the boy who’s got struggles and issues needing assistance. Adepero Oduye (as Congressman Lohman’s assistant Nina) was very good in how she kept her cool during the dinner and when pushed by Katelyn. Oren Moverman wrote and directed a convoluted and confusing script and screenplay that overdid the segues into Paul’s neuroses.

Overall:  Although the subjects of family, family history, doing what is right and dealing with mental illness are good subjects, this film meandered and wasn’t clearly focused.