Review of Greed
midlandsmovies • June 15, 2020
Review of Greed
Review of Greed (2020) Directed by Michael Winterbottom
Leicester’s historical hosiery past gets a mention in a new satirical comedy Greed from Michael Winterbottom.
Director of 24 Hours Party People and the “A Trip to…” trilogy, he again pairs with Steve Coogan who plays entrepreneur Richard McCreadie, a man who has amassed his huge wealth through his cut throat wheeling and dealing of High Street retail.
The film is structured around Peep Show’s David Mitchell playing a bumbling biographer who is attempting to meet the mogul before his 60th birthday celebrations on the Greek island Mykonos. And Greed opens during the party preparations, with the centre piece being a recreation of the Colosseum on a clifftop ready to be a part of a decadent Roman toga party.
A mixture of Del Boy and Phillip Green, the film flashbacks to McCreadie’s ‘humble’ beginnings where his wise-ass negotiations and arrogant business demeanour help him build up a portfolio of businesses.
His ruthlessness sees his money growing as he bullies shop staff and asset strips a number of outlets to increase his personal fortune with few qualms who he hurts and treads on. At the same time, Leicester is again mentioned when discussing the cost of wages in the city and how McCreadie can lower costs by shipping garment production to Sri Lanka.
There are heaps of famous cameos in the film – one from James Blunt being particularly good – and excellent support from Isla Fisher, Sophie Cookson, Shirley Henderson, Asa Butterfield and Sarah Solemani added a fair amount of depth to the peripheral characters which help flesh out the story beats.
In the end as the film catches up with the present, Greed tries to portray McCreadie as a Philip Green figure – one who exploits for profit and without any reservations of the human or environmental cost. The film is a gladiatorial arena of concepts and tackles the impact of capitalism on both UK workers and the inequality of worldwide labour markets.
Coogan does well as the ‘lion’ of all businessmen and a welcome return to Leicester – the home of Premiership dreams and Richard III – at the film’s conclusion, shows the homegrown impact of this fictional but all-too-prescient story.
As well as being interspersed with interviews, the film is a scattershot of important themes – refugees, capitalism, exploitation and foreign labour - but it tries to do too much. Often, it feels like a sharper focus on one or two of its main viewpoints could have hit the mark far more successfully.
So although it strays from its targets by attempting to cover too many topics, Greed’s overabundance of concepts were far better than tackling too few. And yet despite this flaw, its funny jokes did keep me entertained for the most part. Consequently, if you’re a fan of the director and star’s previous comical collaborations together, you’ll no doubt find amusement in this mockery of vulgar business ventures.
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