Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: James Cox, Defiant Screen Entertainment.
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Taron Egerton, Emma Roberts, Jeremy Irvine.
Here’s a biographical crime drama based on the real life Billionaire Boys Club from Southern California in the 1980s – and it’s quite unbelievable.
A group of rich teenagers in Los Angeles get involved in a Ponzi scheme that eventually leads to murder. Led by their fellow preppie friend Joe Hunt (Elgort), a group of wealthy young men in 1980s LA come up with a plan to make a bundle with a Ponzi scheme. The plan ends badly for all involved when Hunt and friend Tim Pitt (Bokeem Woodbine) end up murdering investor, high roller and con man Ron Levin (Spacey). Oscar-winner Spacey is good at playing the bad guy.
A get-rich-quick scheme run by a financial whiz kid, college student Joe Hunt and tennis pro Dean Karny (Egerton) whose investment pool propels them into the upper echelons of LA in the early ‘80s. Not many can resist their personality and unrestrained objectives as they both convince a group of advantaged trust fund heavies to invest in the BBC.
Joe and Dean become celebrities overnight, oozing with money, sex and stardom. Their extravagant lifestyle and remarkable returns cloak a cumulative fraud. Their voracious avarice is mainly to blame for an empire that’s hollow since the law finally catches up with them.
‘Dean’s loyalty wavers, the body count rises, and Joe must make a moral choice between freedom and his own redemption.’
Blu-ray viewing delivers a crisp rendition of an ethical tale about people who think they can get away with the impossible.
