All the Money in the World - so good they made it twice!

Say what you like about Ridley Scott but there is no denying that when it comes to film-making he’s the fastest gun around. All the Money in the World had a Christmas Day release date in the United States, so it could qualify for the Oscars. That’s a tight turnaround given they didn’t start shooting until May.

Then there was the small matter of the scandal. The film originally featured Kevin Spacey but, after his exposure as a sexual predator, Scott unilaterally decided to replace him even though the film was complete and only weeks away from release. Scott has form at this sort of thing; Oliver Reed died during shooting of Gladiator with several scenes unshot and Scott got him into the finished film.

But this is more than a bit of CGI trickery. This was a root and branch re-shoot; 22 scenes in nine days starting over Thanksgiving weekend. The original stars, Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg, were brought back and Spacey was replaced by Christopher Plummer, evidently the director’s first choice for the role. The results are nothing short of a triumph.

Even if this film had been conceived as it finally appears it is a superb piece of work; for it to reach our screens in its current state is little more than miraculous. This is a case of keeping the best for last because it is one of the films of the year and a series contender for awards season.

It is based on the true story of the kidnapping of young Paul Getty (Charlie Plummer, no relation) in Rome in 1973. His grandfather J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) is the wealthiest man who has ever lived, but he refuses to pay a penny in ransom. With her son’s life at stake it falls to his mother (Michelle Williams) – Getty’s daughter-in-law Gail Harris – to get the old man to pay up.

This is a nail-biting ticking clock scenario. The boy’s life is constantly in jeopardy but there is also the suggestion that given his family circumstances, he might be better cared for by his kidnappers than his family. They do at least value him.

The film features all sorts of improbable twists and turns but what is remarkable is that the ones you are likeliest to dismiss as wild exaggeration are in fact true; like the world’s wealthiest man doing his own laundry to save on hotel bills, or having a pay phone box installed in his baronial mansion so his guests could pay for their own calls.

Scott directs the film at a frantic pace as it moves back and forward through the tumultuous lives of this turbulent family. It is an intimate story told on an epic scale with some stunning cinematography from his frequent collaborator Dariusz Wolski. David Scarpa’s script turns a saga that ran for months into a taut two hours and at the centre of all of this are two remarkable performances.

Christopher Plummer has never been better than as Getty. There’s a line in voice-over to the effect that being a Getty is like being from another planet. Plummer does a superb job in portraying a man who is in this world but not necessarily of this world. The film suggests that Paul really is his favourite, a second chance for the lousy job he did in parenting his own son, and yet Getty is adamant that he will not pay a cent in ransom. It would be easy to play this role as a pantomime monster, but Plummer has a nuanced, weary air which makes you by turns sympathetic and horrified.

Michelle Williams is similarly good as Gail Harris. It’s a performance that veers from the feral to the fragile. She begins as a sort of Lady Macbeth character trying to manipulate her feckless husband, and ends up confronting the world’s most powerful business empire to save her child.

The film’s weak spot is Mark Wahlberg as Fletcher Chase, Getty’s security chief who is told to handle things. Unlike the other two, Chase is an amalgam of several characters, so Wahlberg doesn’t really have a lot to do other than keep the story moving along.

The greatest achievement of All the Money in the World is that, to quote the great Eric Morecambe, you can’t see the join. This is film-making of the highest order not only from Scott and Wolski but also from editor Claire Simpson, and even the costume department who had to cope with Wahlberg having lost 30 pounds between the re-shoots.

It’s a remarkable display of bravura directing from Scott who has taken the most difficult circumstances of his career and turned them into one of the best films of his distinguished career. If that’s not worth an Oscar, it certainly ought to be.