All The Money in the World - 1 nomination

Actor in a Supporting Role - Christopher Plummer

All the Money in the World is based on the true story of the kidnapping of J Paul Getty's grandson, and the family's desperate attempt to recover the victim alive.  Michelle Williams plays Getty the third's mother, who is desperate to get her son back, and who has never inherited any money from her ex-father in law, the richest man in the world.  Plummer plays J Paul Getty who doesn't negotiate with kidnappers on principle, and is equally desperate to win at any cost, who measures his life by how much money he makes, for whom there is no number high enough to satisfy his competitive nature.  He knows that his son, Getty the second, has totally ruined his own life as an addict, but still begrudges his former daughter in law for having divorced his son.  The kidnappers themselves are basically inexperienced bunglers who never planned to hurt anyone, and for whom the situation quickly gets well beyond their control.  It is a game in which a real person's life hangs in the balance, though most of the players in the game seem emotionally removed from that fact.  Mark Wahlberg plays Fletcher Chase, an ex-CIA operative who Getty sends to Michelle Williams to help negotiate with the kidnappers, and who is loyal to Getty until he sees Getty for the man he really is.  

If all of that sounds complicated, let me sum it up for you - if only money could cure family dysfunction, there would be no movie to have here.  This supporting actor role was clearly a set up for an Oscar nomination, and Kevin Spacey would surely have played the part to a nomination, as well.  Post Spacey's unceremonious ousting from Hollywood, Ridley Scott made the risky decision to completely reshoot all of the scenes Spacey was in with Christopher Plummer as Getty.  All of this reshooting and editing was done in literally 3 weeks, which means that some of the story editing likely fell by the wayside in a mad dash to get the movie released in time.  It was a little bit long and definitely could have lost an additional 15 minutes from the film, at least.  

Having said that, I still enjoyed it, found the story compelling, and the acting superb.  It is a story of reason versus emotion, of rational thought versus familial love, where both sides make perfect sense.  It is almost hard to know who to root against, even when one clearly knows who to root for.  Very well done and well worth seeing.