Check CASH [Netflix] – Review in FilmTotaal

Director: Jérémie Rozan | Script: Jérémie Rozan | Cast: Raphaël Quenard (Daniel), Agathe Rousselle (Virginia), Igor Gotesman (Scania), Antoine Gouy (Patrick Breuil), Youssef Hajdi (Angel), others | Time to play: 95 minutes | Year: 2023

Daniel lives in a French town where the wealthy Breuil family rules the roost: they own a gigantic distribution center where he himself is forced to work. However, he learns to enjoy wealth without being noticed. Together with his best friend Scania, he starts stealing perfume bottles that are being sold in the market, but soon petty crime starts to burst at the seams.

MONEY It only takes an hour and a half, but there’s a lot going on. Only the introduction of Daniel and the Breuil family appears, but everything is easy to follow, including the information that this story is about capitalism. Not very wide or deep, but still. The French city is the world, and the distribution center represents the global market. Pretty black and white, but it’s still nice that it’s more than just a mindless cop movie.

In any case, he ensures that sympathy falls entirely on Daniel, who can rob carelessly without arousing sympathy for the company. He feels like finding a wallet with a ten and a library card registered to Elon Musk; you put that money in your own pocket.

It’s just that the character development is going a little too fast. It’s clear that Scania is Daniel’s best friend, but no attention is paid to how he hangs out. Daniel himself isn’t extremely padded either, but there are a few points that give an indication. Not all positive either, turns out he’s not the brightest light. This is immediately clear in a scene in a nightclub where he wants to impress a girl by spouting a lot of business jargon in a way that reveals he has no idea what it all means.

It’s one of the funniest moments in the movie. MONEY It doesn’t laugh, it squeals, it roars but it’s definitely not a serious crime movie. The tone is very reminiscent breaking badwhich is further emphasized by some images that are exactly like in that series.

But the plot is all its own. Very French too, doing it about the perfume. It’s not entirely clear how this distribution center is also the factory where the fragrances are made, but that’s easy to take for granted. It immediately becomes clear how the bottles will be pushed. How then it intensifies.

MONEY uses a tight script that perfectly follows the fixed steps of the story structure. Make no mistake: this is a positive. The best motion pictures also adhere to this, it is the interpretation of that structure that makes the difference. The moment the film is halfway through is relatable, when Daniel and the henchmen he has now assembled start flying too close to the sun, and it can only go downhill.

It’s a bit at the expense of the cheerful atmosphere, because on the one hand you don’t want them to be arrested and on the other hand they don’t behave very sensibly. But there are even more twists that aren’t predictable, but make sense because little elements had been planted before. The pace increases, but the attention remains.

The characters are so flat and bland that the acting of the actors is too. In a way, this means that no one is a fan, but at the same time, no one really impresses. It’s a waste, the antagonist and/or the protagonist could have been a bit more memorable.

The history is. MONEY It will always be that suave movie about a group of people going to steal perfume bottles for those who have seen it. It almost seems like a true story, but it certainly isn’t. The new status quo at the end of the movie isn’t entirely clear, it’s going a little too fast. But it is clear how the affair ended, and that is enough. It was like a roller coaster, and afterwards there’s always a time to come back with a dazed head.

MONEY can be seen in Netflix.