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Greedy
Daniel ............
Michael J. Fox
Uncle Joe .........
Kirk Douglas
Robin .............
Nancy Travis
Molly ............. Olivia d'Abo
Frank .............
Phil Hartman
Carl ..............
Ed Begley Jr.
Glen .............. Jere Burns
Patti ............. Colleen Camp
Ed ................
Bob Balaban
Imagine Entertainment presents a film
directed by Jonathan Lynn. Produced by Brian Grazer. Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Photographed by Gabriel Beristain.
Edited by Tony Lombardo. Music by Randy Edelman. Running time: 113 minutes. Classified: PG-13
(for language).
This film is not a great one, by any
means, but there are a few good laughs in it. The idea is that rich Uncle
Joe, played by Kirk Douglas, has a horrid family of people who are
totally devoted to inheriting his vast wealth, no matter what it
takes. The skull-duggery is sometimes funny,
most often tedious. When filmmakers ask the audience to spend a couple
hours watching thoroughly unpleasant people, they should really give us
more in return than they give us here. Scheming can be fun, in a
film like "The Sting;" but in this one it is heavy-handed and
boring.
The one interesting thing about the
movie is its exploration of the concept of greed. Daniel, played by Michael
J. Fox is, at the beginning of the film, the one
uncorrupted relative. His father had walked out on Uncle Joe years
ago, motivated by disgust at the other relatives' behavior and
some measure of liberal aversion to the very idea of wealth. Danny
is a professional bowler who chokes in the big games and is ready
to throw his career overboard anyway when his relatives try to
bring him into their plans regarding Uncle Joe. They figure that
Joe always liked Danny as a boy (though he now hates his other relatives
for obvious reasons), and that if he left his money to Danny they could
make deals with Danny on the side.
Danny starts out, however, as a
marvel of integrity, vowing not to let himself be sold out to greed. He
manfully resists some opportunities to ingratiate himself for
financial reward. Eventually, however, he begins to crack. For various reasons,
it appears that Joe wants to dispose of his assets before he dies. In time, Danny comes to feel that it is
in Uncle Joe's best interest to leave the money to him rather than to
the other family members, since they would simply dump Joe in a nursing
home and forget about him. So Danny schemes like the rest of them, on one
occasion transparently and shamefully, to get the money.
The question arises, to what extent
are Danny's actions motivated by real love for Uncle Joe, and to what
extent by greed? What the film seems to tell us (mostly through the
sayings of Danny's all-wise girl friend) is that in the final analysis the
motive is greed, though from seeing Danny's actions I would not have been
so sure. At any rate, at the end, Danny's true (ungreedy)
colors shine through.
The film does present, if it doesn't
always understand, the fact that people's motives are usually mixed. Even
the horrible relatives can plead some measure of altruism as
they state their own cases. Danny undoubtedly has good and bad in his intentions.
And Uncle Joe's young British "nurse," who spends most of her
time nearly nude, is the butt (ahem) of much the
family's hatred, but in the end she has the integrity to leave (or
at least so it seems) rather than sleep with Joe. After all of
this, one wonders why the film seems so sure about the moral
judgments it does make.
The other question: have the people
been corrupted by the quest for money, or has the quest been corrupted by
the people involved? The film leaves the question open, but the plot
seems to lead us to the conclusion that both are true.
Christians can raise issues here about original sin. The quest for moral purity in a sinful world, apart from divine grace, is so futile. The love of money, too, is a root of all kinds of evil. Who among us can claim to be free from covetousness? The film seems to be saying that all of us are greedy at heart. Whether intentionally or not, they have hit a biblical principle. Would that they had seen the biblical solution. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; but Jesus can cleanse it through his blood.