Greedy People (film)

Greedy People is a 2024 American crime comedy film directed by Potsy Ponciroli and written by Michael Vukadinovich. It follows the misadventures of several lives in a small coast town that end up entangled by a web of lies, which creates a domino effect of retaliatory murders all around greed. The film stars Himesh Patel, Lily James, Tim Blake Nelson, Uzo Aduba, Nina Arianda, Jim Gaffigan, Simon Rex and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.^[3]

The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 23, 2024 and a streaming release the same day.

Rookie cop Will has recently moved with his pregnant wife Paige and is now partnered with an unhinged and morally questionable local officer, Terry, in the small Southern seaside town of Providence.

While showing the rookie around on his first day, Terry eventually leaves Will alone in the cruiser to have sex with the wife of a local businessman. While Terry's inside, Will gets a call from dispatch which he mistakes for a request to investigate a burglary and is forced to go and handle the job alone. Upon arriving at the location, he finds the door ajar, and when he enters, he mistakenly fires at the occupant but misses her. She retaliates violently, and in the struggle, she is accidentally killed.

Terry arrives later. He finds Will distraught and the body, which he reveals is Virginia Chetlo, wife to Wallace Chetlo, a local, powerful fishery owner. Planning on what to do next, the officers uncover a large basket of money in the house. They decide to abscond with the money, which they lock up in an isolated container, cover up the accident by trashing the place and make it seem like a robbery murder and make up an alibi by going on duty. When they're called to the crime scene, Wallace tells them Virginia's masseur was working that morning. Will tells Paige that it was Terry who killed Virginia.

Keith is a naive guy that works as a masseur, handyman, and sex assistant to Virginia Chetlo. He witnesses both Will and Terry messing with the crime scene and escapes to his house. After the officers show up to question him the next day, it is revealed that his mom knows everything and wants him to get the money from the basket and run away.

Wallace Chetlo meets his mistress, Deborah, at work and receives a call from 'The Colombian', one of the two town's hitmen who was supposed to kill Virginia and take the money, which he threatens Wallace for. Paige starts feeling scared from Terry after inviting him for dinner.

Paige hires the other hitman in town, 'The Irishman', to kill Terry and retrieves the money from the container to pay him an advance. Wallace and Deborah go to Keith's house to ask about the money, but William, Keith, and his mom ensue and end up dead in a shooting witnessed by Will, who meets Terry after his assassination attempt fails. When Terry finds out Paige took the money, he kills Will and is shot by Chief Murphy before he gets to Paige.

Paige wakes up in a hospital and attempts to flee, but it's killed by 'The Colombian', who escapes with Wallace's money. In the elevator, he meets up with Deborah and, after a struggle, both end up dead. Chief Murphy adopts Paige and Will's child and reminds herself to be hopeful.

The film was initially titled The Problem with Providence.^[4][5] In May 2022 it was announced that filming was starting, with Lily James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Himesh Patel appearing in the Limelight, Boies Schiller Entertainment and Hideout Pictures financed and produced film directed by Potsy Ponciroli and written by Michael Vukadinovich. Producers are David Boies, Zack Schiller, Shannon Houchins, Dylan Sellers and Chris Parker with executive producers Tyler Zacharia, Sam Slater, Phil Keefe and Dane Eckerle with Vukadinovich.^[6] On May 13, it was revealed that Tim Blake Nelson, Uzo Aduba, Simon Rex, Nina Arianda, Jim Gaffigan, José María Yazpik and Joey Lauren Adams had joined the cast.^[7] Filming took place in Southport, North Carolina, between May 9 and June 11, 2022.^[8] In October 2023, it was retitled Greedy People.^[9]

In February 2024, Lionsgate acquired domestic distribution rights to the film; its Indian division also acquired distribution rights for India and the Philippines from Mister Smith Entertainment.^[10] The film was released theatrically and on video-on-demand in the United States on August 23, 2024.^[11]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 61% of 44 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a doofus with entertaining savvy in Greedy People, a shaggy crime comedy that welcomes unflattering comparisons to better examples of the genre."^[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 45 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[13]

• Greedy People at IMDb