GREEK TRAGEDY (GREED)

 

Earlier this year, Steve Coogan's partnership with director Michael Winterbottom served up a double helping of comedy.

The pair reunited with Rob Brydon on the small screen for what they say will be the last time with Sky Atlantic's sublime improvised sitcom 'The Trip to Greece'. 

Around the same time in cinemas the director and his star served up the satirical movie 'Greed' - a withering expose of the illusion of wealth in big business.

Written and directed by Winterbottom, 'Greed' has a lot to get off its chest and it attacks its subject with great vigour.

Coogan plays Sir Richard McCreadie, a cheap fashion magnate modelled on the real life figure Philip Green.

Like the Arcadia Group chairman, McCreadie is under the microscope of a Parliamentary committee as Westminster MPs led by Miles Jupp's unnamed chair.

The committee is probing unethical practices in his business empire and the wider fashion industry.

Using flashback, Winterbottom shows how McCreadie rose from humble beginnings with his Northern Irish mum, Shirley Henderson's Margaret to become a rebellious public school student and a ruthlessly ambitious clothes salesman.

These flashbacks play out against the present day context of a garish 60th birthday party on the Greek island of Mykonos that David Mitchell's journalist witnesses for the autobiography he is ghostwriting.

McCreadie wants a 'Gladiator' themed party - insisting his guests must all wear togas - and has tasked his assistants Sarah Solemani's Melanie, Tim Key's Sam and Dinita Gohil's Amanda with building a gladiatorial arena complete with a real lion and ensuring stars like Elton John, Fatboy Slim and Stephen Fry are there.

Of course, little goes to plan.

The tanned business supremo is appalled that asylum seekers have camped on the beach before the party and he tries to bribe them into going when they refuse to leave. 

And when it becomes clear some celebrities will not be attending, he hires lookalikes to deceive the paparazzi. 

Isla Fisher's celeb obsessed ex-wife Samantha, in whose name his tax avoiding profits are registered in Monaco, is on hand to join in the celebrations and the two continue to share a close bond, even though he has a new trophy wife, Shaina Shaik's Naomi.

Amid the chaos, McCreadie's daughter, Sophie Cookson's Lily arrives with a camera crew in tow for a scripted reality TV show 'The Young, The Rich and The Beautiful' which she is filming with Fabian, played by 'Made in Chelsea' star Ollie Locke.

Asa Butterfeld's Finn, McCreadie's frustrated son, mopes around the island and does cocaine during the party as he obsesses about replacing his father Oedipus style.

And while the McCreadie family circle shamelessly flaunts their shallow, nouveau riche lifestyle, Winterbottom hammers home the human cost of what they do as they employ sweatshop workers in South East Asia, asset strip stores in the UK, demean staff and dodge taxes.

Even the shoddily constructed gladiatorial arena becomes a perfect metaphor for his business as he cuts corners to avoid paying local taxes.

All of these ingredients make for a very substantial but ultimately unpalatable stew as Winterbottom surprisingly gets overwhelmed by what he has created.

'Greed' fails to strike the right balance between tongue in cheek satire and outright indignation unlike Adam McKay's 'The Big Short' or 'Vice.'

Unable to find the right tone, it instead comes across as heavy handed as Martin Scorsese's 'The Wolf of Wall Street'.

Instead of deftly landing its punches, 'Greed' flails about the ring with all the balletic grace of Joe Bugner.

Satire gives way to po faced preachiness and it doesn't help that the performances are so uneven.

Coogan shines as McCreadie - all fake tan, capped teeth and aplha male bravado. It is as monstrous a creation as we have ever seen him deliver.

However that good work is undermined by Henderson's ropey performance as his mum complete with a dodgy Northern Irish accent and Mitchell's uncomfortably stiff Nick.

Fisher makes the most of her role as the shallow Samantha and Gohil is effective as the morally conflicted Amanda, although her back story seems a little too convenient.

Butterfeld doesn't quite convince as the increasingly unhinged son and Cookson struggles with a pretty one dimensional character.

There are, however, decent performances from Key, Jupp, Asim Chaudhry as a lion tamer called Frank and the real life Syrian refugee Mannolis Emmanuel who depicts an asylum seeker called Demetrious.

Jupp even gets to deliver a self-knowing joke, referencing the children's TV show that gave him his first break 'Balamory'. 

Charlie Cooper, from the hit BBC3 sitcom 'This Country' also has a cameo as a shop manager who feels the sharp end of McCreadie's tongue - although you would like to see more from him than just standing there getting blasted by Coogan.

One of Winterbottom's biggest gripes in the film is the ultimately hollow image obsession of business tycoons and their families.

Lily's scripted reality TV show is one manifestation of this.

McCreadie's reliance on bank financing to create an illusion of business success and a lavish lifestyle is another.

Samantha's obsession about having celebs perform for them privately in the same way people choose home furnishings is another.

At one point in the film, McCreadie placates her by having James Blunt serenade her with his syrupy song 'You're Beautiful' for £75,000 for just five minutes work.

However when Winterbottom strings together a series of video tributes to McCreadie at his party from the likes of Coldplay's Chris Martin, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Pixie Lott, Louis Walsh and Ben Stiller the point is lost.

While there are definitely some morsels to savour in Winterbottom's film, there is ultimately too much to grimace at.

Unfortunately it ain't 'La Dolce Vita' and by the time 'Greed' reaches its heavy handed climax, you have an even deeper appreciation of the subtle balance between satire and stylism in Federico Fellini's film.

Like Scorsese's 'The Wolf of Wall Street', we know watching 'Greed' that Michael Winterbottom is much, much better than this.

But even if it is a failure, at least he has created an interesting failure.

('Greed' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on February 21, 2020 and was made available on DVD and streaming services on July 15, 2020)