When we first meet small town cop Terry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), he’s telling a joke so tasteless and ill-advised for the workplace that we know exactly who this guy is and how much he doesn’t care who he offends. In the darkly comedic crime thriller Greedy People, Terry is tasked with showing his new rookie partner Will (Himesh Patel) the island community where they now work and live, and where very little happens in the way of crime. Will has just moved to the island with his pregnant wife (Lily James), and he just wants to fit in. His captain (Uzo Aduba) puts the two men together, but we get a sense that she’d like Will to keep an eye on Terry, rather than the other way around.
While Will is stuck in the squad car waiting for Terry to have sex with his married girlfriend, a call comes in for what Will believes is a break-in at the palatial home of a local shrimp company owner (Tim Blake Nelson). When he arrives, he finds the man’s wife (Traci Lords) in the house with headphones on, so she doesn’t hear Will identify himself; she immediately attacks him, thinking he’s an intruder, and is accidentally killed. Terry soon arrives and in the course of trying to cover their tracks and make it either look like an accident or frame someone else for doing it, they discover a stash of $1 million and decide to take it and make it look like a break-in. But when the husband is interviewed, he doesn’t mention the missing money, which makes the cops suspicious of him, making the husband the prime candidate as a suspect in the “murder.”
Directed by Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) and scripted by Mike Vukadinovich, Greedy People is a whirlwind of misinformation, unreliable witnesses and suspects, and at least two police officers eager to make anyone but themselves look guilty. The two cops agree to split the money if they get away with it, which is easier said than done, since every eccentric member of the community seems to know both a small piece of what really happened and that there’s a lot of money floating around town somewhere. Terry is just plain greedy, but Will actually fears getting caught because it would take him away from his wife and child. There’s also a masseur (Simon Rex), who may have been having an affair with the now-dead woman; a receptionist at the shrimp company (Nina Arianda) who is definitely having an affair with Nelson’s character; not one but two hitman who work on the island (José María Yazpik as The Colombian, and Jim Gaffigan as The Irishman) and are being kept busy.
There are double-crosses, fluid allegiances, and, as we discover throughout the film, no one’s life is sacred or safe. As the title suggests, the plot is propelled by greed and a desperation to either get out of this small-minded town or lose themself in it for security. But it’s Gordon-Levitt’s unhinged performance (after lately playing affable sidekicks) that took me completely off guard. By the end of Greedy People, he’s fully the villain, going from charming but off-putting doofus to appalling criminal tying up loose ends in the bloodiest way possible. It’s a phenomenal, unexpected turn that makes this movie well worth seeking out.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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