‘I’ve done nothing wrong…’
Michael Winterbottom is an odd director. Acclaimed for his series of films with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in which they travel the globe eating amazing food and doing impressions of Sean Connery, and beloved for 24 Hour Party People – Winterbottom’s love letter to Tony Wilson and Factory Records – the prolific filmmaker has also released a number of films beloved and remembered by nobody. Greed isn’t quite as forgettable as so much of Winterbottom’s output, but it is a strangely shallow film – fitting perhaps considering the subject matter…
Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is a retail entrepreneur and all round villain who is taking stock of his life in the midst of planning a grotesque and lavish party for his upcoming 50th birthday. Meanwhile, journalist Nick (David Mitchell) is attempting to pull together McCreadie’s story for an upcoming biography.
Greed should have been a winner. Coogan and Winterbottom often make for a successful partnership, the cast is packed full of British comedy talent (Charlie Cooper, Tim Key, Stephen Fry, Asa Butterfield etc), and Isla Fisher is wonderful as McCreadie’s trophy wife Samantha. The issue is that somehow, despite the presence of all of the above, Greed is rarely funny. While it is clearly supposed to be satire, Coogan’s character is never really unlikeable. Even a scene in which he has a group of refugees evicted from a public beach is played for laughs which results in a jarring and often contradictory tone. The message here is clearly that the super rich are destructively selfish, but surely this is obvious? There is no nuance. There is nothing of substance. When Winterbottom does try to include a subplot with a bit more emotional depth, it is so at odds with the rest of the film that it falls flat.
The saving grace of Greed is that for all its mixed messages and lack of genuine humour, it is never dull. Coogan is entertaining if a little distracting in the main role and the plot moves along at a pace that ensures that nothing ever feels stale.
Fittingly, Greed as a film is much like the life of the main character. Hedonistic, full of shiny things, but ultimately empty.