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IMDbPro

Greed

  • 2019
  • R
  • 1h 44m
IMDb RATING
5.8/10
8K
YOUR RATING
Steve Coogan in Greed (2019)
'Greed' tells the story of self-made British billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan), whose retail empire is in crisis. For 30 years he has ruled the world of retail fashion – bringing the high street to the catwalk and the catwalk to the high street – but after a damaging public inquiry, his image is tarnished. To save his reputation, he decides to bounce back with a highly publicized and extravagant party celebrating his 60th birthday on the Greek island of Mykonos. A satire on the grotesque inequality of wealth in the fashion industry, the film sees McCreadie’s rise and fall through the eyes of his biographer, Nick (David Mitchell).
Play trailer2:27
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ComedyDrama

Satire about the world of the super-rich.Satire about the world of the super-rich.Satire about the world of the super-rich.

  • Director
    • Michael Winterbottom
  • Writers
    • Michael Winterbottom
    • Sean Gray
  • Stars
    • Caroline Flack
    • Steve Coogan
    • David Mitchell
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    5.8/10
    8K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Michael Winterbottom
    • Writers
      • Michael Winterbottom
      • Sean Gray
    • Stars
      • Caroline Flack
      • Steve Coogan
      • David Mitchell
    • 134User reviews
    • 76Critic reviews
    • 52Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win

    Videos38

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    Photos69

    Steve Coogan in Greed (2019)
    Steve Coogan in Greed (2019)
    Steve Coogan, Isla Fisher, and Asa Butterfield in Greed (2019)
    Steve Coogan at an event for Greed (2019)
    Greed (2019)
    Greed (2019)
    Greed (2019)
    Greed (2019)
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    Greed (2019)
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    Top cast

    Edit
    Caroline Flack
    Caroline Flack
    • Self
    Steve Coogan
    Steve Coogan
    • Sir Richard McCreadie
    David Mitchell
    David Mitchell
    • Nick
    Isla Fisher
    Isla Fisher
    • Samantha
    Sarah Solemani
    Sarah Solemani
    • Melanie
    Manolis Emmanouel
    Manolis Emmanouel
    • Demetrious
    Shanina Shaik
    Shanina Shaik
    • Naomi
    Giannis Gryparis
    • Giannis
    Tim Key
    Tim Key
    • Sam
    Jonny Sweet
    Jonny Sweet
    • Jules
    Asim Chaudhry
    Asim Chaudhry
    • Frank the Lion Tamer
    Shirley Henderson
    Shirley Henderson
    • Margaret
    Asa Butterfield
    Asa Butterfield
    • Finn
    Miles Jupp
    Miles Jupp
    • Select Committee Chairman
    Jamie Blackley
    Jamie Blackley
    • Young Richard McCreadie
    Lewis Andrews
    • Young Lewis
    Paul Ritter
    Paul Ritter
    • Lewis
    Will Smith
    • Teacher
    • Director
      • Michael Winterbottom
    • Writers
      • Michael Winterbottom(screenplay)
      • Sean Gray(additional material by)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Sacha Baron Cohen was originally going to play Sir Richard McCreadie but dropped out. After Steve Coogan was cast in the lead Isla Fisher was cast as Sir Richard McCreadie's ex-wife and she is married to Sacha Baron Cohen in real life.
    • Goofs
      All entries contain spoilers
    • Quotes

      Samantha: No one reads the Mail Online, it's cleavage clickbait!

      Sir Richard McCreadie: Yeah, except I'M the tit this time.

    • Connections
      Featured in Projector: Greed (2020) (2020)
    • Soundtracks
      Ta Ftera Tis Selinis
      Performed by Spanomarkou Areti & Ioanna SPANOMARKOU

      Featuring Kostas Ifantis

      Words and Music by Ioanna Spanomarkou, Areti Spanomarkou

      Licenced courtecy of F.M. Digital Tunes Ltd. (FM Records) P&C 2012

    User reviews134

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    8/10
    A savage and hilarious satire
    We live in an era where wealth is distributed upwards and the gap between the haves and have-nots has become wider than ever. According to inequality org, the richest 1% of the world's population controls 45% of global wealth, whilst the poorest 64% of the population control less than 1% of the wealth. In 2018, Oxfam reported that the wealth of the 26 richest people in the world was equal to the combined wealth of the 3.5 billion poorest people. This is the milieu of Greed, a hilarious satire from prolific genre-hopping writer/director Michael Winterbottom. Examining how the rich get richer, the film focuses on a successful British clothing entrepreneur, and its bread and butter is the concomitant grotesquery that results when an individual has the same wealth as a small country. Mixing send-up and satire with more serious socio-economic points, Greed doesn't really do or say a huge amount that hasn't been done or said before, but it's entertaining, amusing, and undeniably relevant.

    Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan) is one of Britain's richest men. The perma-tanned "self-made" billionaire is the owner of several clothing chains and is known as "the King of the High Street", although a less complimentary nickname is "Greedy" McCreadie. The non-linear narrative depicts 1) his rise to power, when, as a young man (played by a wonderfully loathsome Jamie Blackley), he opens multiple businesses (all of which fail) as he learns the ins and outs of asset-stripping and the importance of using foreign sweatshops; 2) in the modern-day, we see him hauled before a Parliamentary Select Committee convened to investigate the bankruptcy of one of his chains; and, 3) in the film's present, on the Greek island of Mykonos, the final (chaotic) touches are being put to McCreadie's Roman-themed 60th birthday bash - complete with mandatory togas, a fake coliseum, and a real, albeit somnolent, lion. Much of the story is told through the lens of McCreadie's "official biographer" Nick (David Mitchell), a classically-trained literature buff who drops quotes from Shakespeare and Shelley into everyday conversation, and who hates himself for agreeing to write a fawning celebration of McCreadie.

    The idea that a billionaire could be so cut off from workaday reality as to stage a Roman-themed birthday party on a Greek island may sound far too on the nose, too ridiculously hubristic to say anything of any worth, too over-the-top to even function as satire. However, McCreadie is based on Sir Philip Green, chairman of the Arcadia Group, avoider of taxes, exploiter of the working-class, asset-stripper, and enemy of the #MeToo movement. Similarly, many of the details of McCreadie's ludicrous birthday are lifted verbatim from Green's very real 50th birthday celebrations in 2002 - when he flew 219 guests to Cyprus for a three-day toga party.

    McCreadie, of course, is a hilariously despicable slimeball, a man who unironically feels hard done by when Syrian refugees show up on the (public) beach he's using for his birthday, and both Coogan and Blackley portray him as not only narcissistic and void of conscience, but as a completely classless philistine - whereas Nick, for example, can quote Shakespeare and recite Shelley, lofty symbols of Englishness both, McCreadie proudly gets his cultural know-how from BrainyQuote. However, the important point is that for all his loathsomeness, McCreadie is a symbol for the system that gave rise to and sustains him. For all his crass hubristic excess, McCreadie is neither an aberrant individual nor is he a criminal - he's an especially vulgar product of the system. And, with the crushing defeat of Labour in the 2019 English general election, it seems he's the product of a system which the vast majority of people appear to support.

    The film gets pretty serious towards the end, and before the closing credits, a series of title cards detail some of the facts and figures of global economic disparity, particularly concerning the vast gulf between those who make the clothes we wear and those who sell them to us. Originally, these cards named specific brands as especially guilty of exploiting sweatshop employees, pointing out, for example, that workers in Myanmar earn $3.60 a day making clothes for H&M, whilst owner Stefan Persson is worth $18 billion, and workers in Bangladesh earn $2.84 a day making clothes for Zara, whilst owner Amancio Ortega is worth $68 billion. However, Sony Pictures International, which financed the film with Film4, refused to allow Winterbottom to use these cards, with company head Laine Kline telling him, "we're worried about the potential damage to Sony's corporate relations with these brands". And so replacement cards were used, which feature much of the same information but without reference to any specific companies or people. So how do we know what the original cards said? Because Winterbottom, very much in the viciously sardonic spirit of the film, read them out on-stage after the world première in Toronto! Kline, who was in the audience, was far from impressed, which may account for the shoddy advertising campaign, with the film being released into theatres with virtually no market awareness. Whatever the case, Kline seems unaware of the irony of his actions - in relation to a film which accuses the rich of all manner of shenanigans to insulate and protect themselves and their fortunes, a massive corporate entity has exerted its authority to protect other massive corporate entities. It's like something McCreadie himself would do.

    Aesthetically, the film employs a plethora of techniques, including non-linear editing, direct-to-camera addresses, YouTube videos to provide exposition, split-screen, fake news footage, and title cards. However, it's at its most effective when at its simplest, particularly in scenes involving the wonderful Dinita Gohil as McCreadie's overworked, under-appreciated PA. Amanda's interactions with Nick provide the emotional core of the story, and there's nothing bombastic or ostentatious about their construction - it's all simple shot/counter-shot editing and blocking. And by far the film's best sequence, which comes towards the end, is another simple setup involving Amanda and McCreadie, wherein the scene tells its story not through aesthetic construction or even through dialogue, but through the expression on Gohil's face. It's the moment during which Winterbottom drops all pretence of comedy and focuses on the more serious issues that have hovered at the fringes since the opening seconds.

    If I were to focus on any one problem, it would be two underdeveloped subplots. A (staged) reality TV show subplot involving McCreadie's daughter Lily (Sophie Cookson) provides for some very funny individual moments, but it contributes nothing whatsoever to the main plot. Additionally, the fact that McCreadie and his ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher) are still in love with one another is a theme which never really goes anywhere, which is a shame, as it could have provided some much-needed character development for her and some shades of grey for him.

    For better or worse, we live in an age where there are more billionaires than ever before, and Greed is a comedy about the excess and disconnect of such people. However, so too is it a cautionary tale, a reminder that just because we're removed from exploitation doesn't mean such exploitation isn't happening.
    helpful•72
    41
    • Bertaut
    • Mar 3, 2020

    Details

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    • Release date
      • February 21, 2020 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook (United Kingdom)
      • Official Facebook (United States)
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • 貪婪之人
    • Filming locations
      • Mykonos, Greece
    • Production companies
      • Film4
      • Revolution Films
      • Sony Pictures International Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross US & Canada
      • $355,308
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $24,163
      • Mar 1, 2020
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,460,431
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 44 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39 : 1

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