Greed (UK) [DVD] [2020]

Greed tells the story of self-made British billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) who has ruled the high street retail fashion market for 30 years, until recently his empire is in crisis after a public inquiry and a tarnished public image. He decided to bounce back with a very public and extravagant 60th birthday party in Greece.This film is tonally an odd blend of over the top garish comedy satire of the super rich and (in the latter portions of the film) a deadly serious focus on the poor working conditions and exploitative business practices within the clothes factories located in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and more. This at times makes some of the humour and portrayal of the Syrian refugees for example feel at times cruel and awkward. This is a consistent problem throughout, whether it be jumping through a fairly interesting tax evasion drama section to a simultaneously surprisingly dark and out of place, yet satisfying end of the party scene.The film feels very jumbled in its structure. It jumps from flashback to flash forward to the present day and is interspersed with various interviews and side footage to add context to events as they occur. The overarching narrative drive is that David Mitchell’s Nick is a writer putting together McCreadie’s biography. Also I know the film is exaggerated and aiming for this, but at times the main set of characters (aside from Nick & Amanda) are thoroughly unlikeable, annoying and hard to watch that their constant self-grandiosity, spoilt antics do become repetitive. Luckily there are some genuinely funny moments throughout, McCreadie’s blunt sarcastic lines and Gladiator references are delivered well and the constant bickering over the construction of McCreadie’s arena between his assistant Sam and the head builder are very entertaining.The bright bold Greek location is very cinematic and bleeds wealth and the bright garish aesthetic works perfectly. Contrasted against this are the cramped and messy factories which really goes to emphasise the unjust distribution of wealth. At times the film does feel limited and small scale and its at times patchy CGI lion definitely stands out.Steve Coogan gives an enthusiastic, scenery chewing and imposing performance as McCreadie and he is clearly relishing the opportunity to be a terrible person to basically everyone around him. David Mitchell brings a lot of Mark Corrigan to his quiet and awkward writer Dave but it does work well. Isla Fisher brings a sense of charm to McCreadie’s ex-wife yet still remain sickly sweet and self-grandiosity.Greed is a suitably entertaining yet disjointed 1 hour 45 minutes. The satire is very on the nose and doesn’t hold back as does its sledgehammer and genuinely important message on factory working conditions. However the times clash and the messy feeling structure do let it down. The humour lands a few times but throughout the film is simply not particularly funny.

This is a make-shift B Movie comedy with high production values. The script seems a little shoddy (much akin to a colosseum set built within the story) and it has the air of a made-up-as-it-was-filmed comedy rather than one with multiple layers in a pre-written script.However, there is a real attempt at relevance to one of the great factors in the Climate change problem - The North-South Global wealth divide and how the money-monkeys in the boardrooms run shenanigans within the law... by way of that great oxymoron "creative accounting" (surely that must be No 2 on the list of self-contradictory phrases after "civil war"?)And if you are confused by how the markets work and tire of the flimsy but pleasant plot - at least watch scene 09 where there is a very simple exposition of the manner in which the finance guys played around with other people's companies, jobs, lives... and invented money to make a billion or two.Rumoured to be closely based on a famous UK retailer (of a particular persuasion) the lead character (Coogan) almost serves as a moral Robin Hood. Asked by committee if his actions were questionable albeit within the existing legal framework, he responds like a clever teenager with a diatribe against a host of other companies and celebrities that have highly questionable double standards.

There's a lot of reviews saying don't bother with this film that it doesn't work and the script is inferior, etc. I didn't get that at all it's a hilarious film with a terrific lead in Steve Coogan and so many British stars we've seen from so many other entertaining shows and films. As well as a luxurious escapist holiday vibe hurled at you in this Greek romp there's a very clear message about the lengths successful people go to in achieving their objectives and the trail of destruction left in their wake. Coogans character appears to be a amalgam of Sir Peter Green, Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Ashley, Tim Martin, oh god where am I going with this that sounds like a fever dream! Only the Coogan or dare I say the Partridge could pull this off but it's got nothing to do with the Partridge. This is a really funny film and granted if it were tinkered with a little, maybe not done in mockumentary but in just good old British subtext arty style it might not have been a good film but actually great one, but one must be careful you go too far on the arty, blurred vision, flashback nonsense and it gets all a bit pretentious and that is categorically one thing Greedy is not! See this film if you appreciate current British film or TV you will not be dissapointed

Steve Coogan is a hugely talented fellow but even he can't make this film work as a sort-of comedy with a sort-of tragic element attached. His performance as, basically, a Sir Philip Green-type character (with a few other bits taken from other similar characters) is as well done as anyone could manage, being genuinely amusing at times (with some very good lines) and quite nasty at others (nowhere near as nasty as many of these types, and I have met a few, although not the aforementioned gentleman, I would hasten to add). The problem here is the script, which attempts to crowbar-in some very serious stuff on the nature and structure of emerging market manufacturing conditions into what is presented everywhere else as basically a comedy. And it's all so clumsily and self-consciously done: is there anyone who does not know what the conditions are in which our developed world clothing, and electronic stuff, and other stuff that we don't really need are made? I think very few. These ultra-didactic sequences strike me rather in the same vein as the scathing comments in the film itself about the chronic but hollow virtue-signalling so rife among many 'celebrities' (I use the term very loosely). Trying to man-handle moral statements of the bleeding obvious into otherwise comic films rarely works, and it certainly doesn't here although, again, Steve Coogan is always worth a watch.