63% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 256 reviews)
Runtime: A too long two and a half hours plus
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto and his unforgettable performance
From: MGM/BRON/Scott Free
Last night I discovered that Ridley Scott must be a Donna Summer fan.
There's an AMC A-List app I'm paying for each month that better be used and as Scott yelled at people like me for not seeing The Last Duel (one day far off in the future I'll do so. To be honest, it's no surprise to me that a film with such a story was not a huge hit at the box office), I'll instead check out what looked to be the trashier of the two, and trashy elements this did have. The biggest issue I had with this was the tone. Some characters are way over the top (which I'll mention in a moment. Jared Leto's performance, my God) yet others play it more straight and it's not like The Wolf of Wall Street, another tale of rich people way out of control & behaving badly-which always is rather gauche in style.
To be frank, I knew nothing of the family's drama beforehand so I went into this fresh. Eventually me and everyone else in the same boat are caught up on the backstory of the family and all the drama within. The story told here is a familiar one: wealthy families having drama & feuding with each other, along with outsiders trying to weasel their way in because they're greedy. It's centered around Maurizio Gucci and his wife Patrizia; through her influence he takes over the family business but a prudent keeper of his (along with his company's) wealth he was not. She is a rather devious woman, he has a bitter father, his uncle Aldo is behind the times-it was another over the top performance from Pacino-and Aldo's son Paolo... Lord does this movie savage him something fierce.
Under a mountain of prosthetics, Leto dons the most exaggerated Italian accent you'll ever hear aurally and is portrayed as so incompetent, he had to be mentally handicapped. Not a shock that Paolo's daughter is IRATE over the movie, although other members of the family also aren't happy. Why he was buried so deep here, I am not quite sure as someone who otherwise knows nothing of all the machinations w/ the Gucci empire. At least there are famous faces sporting some real looks w/ their fashion...
All that said, this movie is still fine. I've mentioned before how I'll never understand the Lady Gaga gimmick or why many people think it's great; as she can sing and actually has some catchy songs (a rare admission for me when it comes to a “modern” musical act) I wish it wasn't a thing. Well, she actually delivered the best performance as Patrizia; yep, even better than Adam Driver as Maurizio. While not the best directing I've ever seen from Scott, it wasn't poor overall; the same goes for the song choices that sometimes are rather obvious and are too familiar to me. There's the sneaking suspicion that The Last Duel would have been granted a better rating from me; as is this was not bad... House of Gucci just wasn't a great morality tale concerning the evils of avarice or even was an over the top extravaganza. However, a big laugh came after the movie when I discovered the irony of Salma Hayek's supporting role: her billionaire husband is the CEO of the conglomerate that now owns Gucci.
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