Greedy People is a 2024 American crime comedy film directed by Potsy Ponciroli and written by Michael Vukadinovich. The film stars Himesh Patel, Lily James and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 23, 2024.

Plot

Police officer Will Shelley moves to Providence, a small island town, with his pregnant wife Paige. While at the hardware store, Paige encounters a hitman known as the Irishman. On his first day at his new job, Captain Murphy introduces Will to his new partner, Terry Brogan. Due to the town's low crime rate, Terry decides to visit his girlfriend. While in the car, Will hears a call for a sexual act in a vehicle but mistakes it for a burglary at the Chetlo residence. Terry doesn't hear Will's calls, and Will responds to the call alone. When he arrives, he shoots his gun at the sudden movement of Virginia Chetlo. Upset by the encounter, Virginia attacks Will, and in the resulting scuffle, Virginia is accidentally killed. After Terry arrives at the house and realizes they will both lose their jobs, the two decide to cover up the event as a murder before Terry finds a large bag of cash in the drawing room. As Will is about to become a father and Terry plans on running away with his girlfriend, Terry stages the house to look like a burglary gone wrong, and they decide to keep the money in Terry's storage truck. That night, Will goes home and confesses about the murder and the money to Paige, giving her the storage truck's passcode, but blames the murder on Terry. Paige invited Terry to dinner to see if he was a danger to their family. The dinner makes Paige visibly uncomfortable with Terry. Meanwhile, Virginia's husband, Wallace, the island's only seafood supplier, begs the police to find Virginia's killer. Murphy suspects Wallace of murdering his wife and asks Will and Terry to investigate. They find out that Wallace's business has been losing money. They decide to frame Wallace for killing Virginia for her large life insurance claim. However, Wallace's secretary, Deborah, claims he was with her at the time of the murder. Will and Terry then discover Wallace is having an affair with Deborah. However, camera footage proves that Wallace did not kill his wife. Unknown to the officers, Wallace had hired a hitman known as the Colombian to kill Virginia the day Will killed her by accident. Wallace then assumed that the Colombian killed his wife and took the money he had set out. After a meeting, Wallace realized that Virginia was dead before the Colombian got to the house. He had to pay the Colombian again, and he could not run away with Deborah, or he would become a suspect. He suspected Virginia's masseur, Keith, killed Virginia and took the money. Keith was having an affair with Virginia and was in the house when she was murdered, but he got away. Keith had been interviewed by Will and Terry earlier but lied to make himself look innocent. Keith and his mother had already planned to steal the money from Terry's truck. When they are about to leave, Keith is confronted by Wallace and is accused of stealing the money. After the confrontation builds up, Keith's mother shoots and kills Wallace. Deborah, who was in Wallace's car, comes out and kills Keith and his mother. Will witnesses the fiasco and realizes he can blame either of the parties on Virginia's death. At the same time, fearing that Terry would kill Will and take the money, Paige hires the Irishman to kill Terry, paying him using the cash from Terry's truck. The Irishman confronts Terry at his boat and gains the upper hand until Terry's girlfriend kills the Irishman. Because of his increasing paranoia about Will and Paige, Terry immediately deduces that one of them hired the hitman. Terry demands Will prove his innocence by showing the money, but the money is gone when they arrive at the storage truck. At gunpoint, Will is forced by Terry to call Paige, who, to his shock, confirms she took the money due to her belief that Terry would kill them. Enraged by Will's lie, Terry shoots and kills Will. Paige attempts to flee the island with the money, but Terry catches up to her. Murphy, becoming increasingly suspicious about Will and Terry due to their DNA being found all over the Chetlo crime scene, finds Will's body at the storage dock and calls Paige. Paige claims Terry killed Virginia and then killed Will because he knew about it. Realizing Paige is hiding something, she puts a search out for Terry. Terry informs Paige that Will killed Virginia. Upset by the couple's behavior towards him, Terry raises his gun before Murphy arrives and fatally shoots him. Paige later gives birth to her newborn son, but before she can see him, Murphy interrogates her, believing there is more to the story. Paige sticks to her story, claiming Terry lost his mind and had no idea why he was following her. As Murphy leaves the room, the Colombian enters and kills Paige, taking the money. As he entered the elevator, Deborah followed him in. With each realizing that the other is after the money, they kill each other, with Murphy seeing the aftermath as the elevator doors open. Murphy is later revealed to have adopted Will and Paige's son, explaining that she would never fully understand what happened.

Cast

Production

The film was initially titled The Problem with Providence. 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. 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. Filming took place in Southport, North Carolina, between May 9 and June 11, 2022. In October 2023, it was retitled Greedy People.

Release

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. The film was released theatrically and on video-on-demand in the United States on August 23, 2024.

Reception

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." 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.

References

External links

Greedy People at IMDb