Billionaire Boys Club review

“Do you think people get rich by playing by the rules?”

This line forms the core of this unimpressive slog of a movie, a true-life crime drama set in the ’80s about a group of smarmy Los Angeles investment scammers – young and ambitious individuals – who take their associates for a ride.

But in the long process, they get scammed themselves. James Cox’s production is a feeble imitation of The Wolf of Wall Street and also features Kevin Spacey. At the time he was in hot water over serious sexual allegations in real life involving young men.

What is interesting here is Spacey, who delivers a strong performance as Ron Levin, a shady Hollywood wheeler-dealer, took the risk of playing a character dangerously close to his off-screen persona.

Billionaire Boys Club is a flashy, all style and no substance look at financial scam artist Joe Hart (Ansel Elgort) and how he cunningly manipulated his associates for financial gain.

Hart grew up middle-class and yearned to be “one of the boys.”

Elgort, who previously costarred with Spacey in the excellent Baby Driver, plays a character who is depicted as a well-meaning victim of class circumstances.

Kevin Spacey in Billionaire Boys Club.

He is seduced into betraying a bunch of born-wealthy suckers by the glitzy allure of living their Beverly Hills lifestyles.

The movie goes out of its way to suggest that Hunt wasn’t such a bad person after all. Though Cox lacks punch as a screenwriter, he knows a few tricks behind the camera and nicely captures the early ’80s milieu.

Taron Egerton, of Kingsman fame, plays Dean Karny, the narrator and Hunt’s close friend, who gets to spout some drivel about what it takes to be rich. He also has a dark, murderous secret.

The focus, as one can imagine, is on wealth and the wealthy, and radically simplifies the complicated scheme by which Hunt and Karny arranged to make millions. “Because the perception of reality is more important than reality itself,” the Spacey character explains at one point.

Emma Roberts plays art assistant Sydney Evans who falls for Hunt’s charms but is soon sadly disillusioned by it all. She is the closest thing this movie has to a conscience, and one of the only female characters admitted to this boys-only club.

Overall, a gravely disappointing movie.

Info

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Cast: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Taron Egerton

Director: James Cox

Classification: 16 DLSV