I am a fan of films that start in a small sleepy town and have a bunch of crazy stuff happen. That’s the case with the latest crime comedy Greedy People. The director Potsy Poncircoli gives audiences something similar to a lot of things that have come out in the past but does it in an entertaining way. You don’t care if you’ve seen these tropes before. It’s just fun to watch this crazy mystery unfold before our very eyes.

Officer Will Shelly (Hamish Patel) is new to the Providence,  South Carolina police force. He and his pregnant wife Paige (Lily James) just moved to town for a fresh start. He is teamed with Terry (Joseph Gordan Levitt), a veteran of the force. He is supposed to take the new guy under his wing. While on patrol they stop off at an Asian woman’s hope for a few minutes. Terry goes and tells Will to stay in the car and he will be right out, but to warn him if a certain man comes home or if they get a call. A call comes in and Will answers it. He decides to go handle it himself. What happens is a tragedy and things get crazy from there.

Besides the three actors I’ve mentioned the director has assembled a nice cast of supporting characters. Uzo Aduba plays the police captain and she’s a pretty tough cookie who does take crap from no one. Tim Blake Nelson plays Wallace Chetlo, an entrepreneur of a local fish market and seafood supplier. He has a little action on the side with his secretary while his wife Virginia Chetlo (Tracy Lords) also has something going on outside her relationship with her husband. Jim Gaffigan plays the Irishman, a hitman who gets hired to rub out one of the main characters. Last but not least is Simon Rex who plays a Masseur who gets wrapped up in this story because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This cast is fantastic. They all have specific, but very important roles to play in this story. Some of the things they did made me laugh. This was quite a funny film.

One of the things I liked most about this film was you never knew where it was going to go from moment to moment. There is a macguffin of a million dollars that plays a huge part in the story. That’s where the title comes from. These characters will literally do whatever it takes to get the money. What they considered what they are owed. There is only one real standup character in the story, even though a couple have good intentions that end up going bad.

Part of the beauty of this movie is its setting. It is set in South Carolina and the locations it’s shot on are beautiful. They help create a very gorgeous scenery throughout the film. Which is the opposite of some of the dark things that happen in the story.  Setting a dark comedy like this in a beautiful location helps to offset the crimes, and or criminal activity that goes on. There is one scene that is just blood and death. I wasn’t prepared for it. That’s how dark this story can get at times.

Hamish Patel and Lily James both worked together a few years ago in a movie called Yesterday. About a romantic relationship set to the famous Beatles song. This is a reunion for them. I liked them here, but maybe it was the script or dialogue, but I felt they didn’t have the chemistry they had in Yesterday. Who knows maybe it’s the subject matter? I just thought having already done a movie together they’d have better chemistry on screen. 

One technical thing about the film is that it provides chapter titles with good information in them. Six chapters in total. All of them are named after various characters who play a key role in the story Chapter 1: Cops: It was my number one piece of advice.Chapter 2 The Masseur: What Kind of Son Did I Raise? Chapter 3: The Husband: Is it Wrong To Wanna Be Happy? To Live the Life We Want, Guilt-Free!  Chapter 4: The Columbian: I Already Had the Whole Day Blocked. Chapter 5: The Pregnant Wife: You Can Believe You’re Not Good, Which Is Better Than Believing You Are! 

With August having so many duds with the occasional good film this one passes the mustard just barely. The director infused it with a lot of crime thriller and dark comedy tropes. They work in a literal sense. The whole one thing leads to another analogy played here quite literally. If they hadn’t stopped at the Asian women’s home none of this would have happened in the first place. This movie wouldn’t exist if that happened so all of the stuff happened for a reason and it gave viewers like me a decent film to watch.

Greedy People is a good crime, mystery, and comedy that kept me interested until the end. The end had a crazy bloody sequence, but without the rest of the story, it wouldn’t have gotten that ending. The cast was pretty good with Uzo Aduba and Joseph Gordan Levitt as the two standouts. I laughed quite a bit at all the crazy stupid things the characters did, but I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have done some of these myself.  This movie asks and answers its questions which is a good thing. Overall this was a crazy fun ride. I’m sure audiences will like it.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen