Starring
John Cusack, Willa Fitzgerald, Ellar Coltrane, Jacob Artist. Directed
by Lucky McKee. (2017, 89 min).
Treasure
of the Sierra Madre, this ain't.
Someone
here might have been inspired by it, though, because Blood Money
has more-or-less the same plot, only duller, dumber and filled
with one-dimensional characters. A seriously slumming John
Cusack might - might - make this worth sitting through.
Cusack
plays Miller, an embezzler who pulls a D.B. Cooper by parachuting
from a plane with millions in cash. However, he loses track of the
money and is forced to search the woods for it. Later, three
obnoxious, perpetually-bickering college kids find the loot and two
of them decide to keep it. The third wants nothing to do
with what he suspects is drug money. He's the "smart" one;
the other two are so overcome with greed that the prospect of being
murdered by Miller doesn't faze them.
 |
| Two for flinching. |
The
movie purports to be about how greed makes good people do terrible
things. But unlike the increasingly desperate characters in
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, these three kids are assholes
from the get-go. Lynn (Willa Fitzgerald), in particular, is
horribly-realized, whose sudden self-serving greed makes Daffy Duck
look like a philanthropist. She inexplicably belittles & betrays
lifelong friends who've constantly had her back, even after one of
them has been shot. Cusack, on the other hand, looks like he's having
fun in a role one assumes he took to pay the bills. He isn't in
the film nearly enough, but his quirky performance is good for a few
chuckles.
Elsewhere,
Blood Money is overly-serious, boring, generates
precious-little actual suspense and comes to a terrible conclusion. A
pity, really, because not only is Cusack's talent wasted, director
Lucky McGee has done decent work in the past, none of which is
apparent here. Perhaps he should go back to making horror films.
EXTRA
KIBBLES
FEATURETTE:
"Blood Money Uncovered" (making-of)
DIGITAL
COPY
KITTY CONSENSUS:
MEH...
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