I Care A Lot (2021) Movie Review

 There's always a more creative way to scam people and make a fortune out of it, the world is changing you see. I Care A Lot shows the viewer just that.. well, and beyond. Meet Marla Grayson (One and only Rosamund Pike), the woman behind the idea of abusing the guardianship once and for all. Marla is a court-appointed legal guardian who cares a lot about the ones under her wings, well, to the judge's information that is. You see, she actually is a.. uhm... a scammer. She basically has a web of business, which has a doctor and a caring facility manager in it. She uses this web to simply get some old people into daycare and isolate them from their families, and estates of course, and then just.. rob them blind. A perfect scam isn't it? Well, her latest ward is a cherry, a moneymaker. No family, no relatives, it's a golden cow. But is it?

 Starring Rosamund Pike as lovely businesswoman/scammer Marla Grayson, and Peter Dinklage (Yes, from Game Of Thrones) as the scary, yet so charming mafia boss, I Care A Lot is Netflix's latest catch in their movie catalog. The movie is a full 118 minutes long, and has a great poster! (That's obviously not at all why I watched it though, why would it?) Anyways, that's enough chit-chat, let's get into the details.

First of all, Rosamund Pike was, in every way, an amazing pick for the role if you ask me. She carried her role to a whole new level, and I just loved it. Peter Dinklage's mafia boss seemed like a weak character for me in the most part, since it was a character never developing (Although the tough mafia bosses never develop and that's somehow ok, I guess?) but still, great acting there as well, loved it, loved it. I didn't quite get the Dianne Wiest's Jenniffer character (that's the cherry I wrote about in the beginning). She is, well was a lovely old woman in the beginning, then evolved into a killer, then back to the lovely lady, and then a non talker lot smoker, and then kind of a lovely old lady, proud of her killer son, or something. Her character had so much potential, since she was a locked up monster in a cage, but the script just didn't have any space for her to grow older. (See what I did there?) Anyways, the other sidekick, Fran (Eiza González) is just an empty void. She literally was the only character I couldn't get, at all. She is Marla's partner both in the business and in the life. That's mostly the all of it. She has no role in the story. She gives Marla ideas, which she hardly goes along with, but she's happy. She is shocked by the death of their friends and is afraid they're gonna die, therefore tells Marla they're leaving, but then Marla only goes and tells their enemy she will not lose, they will all die. (I mean, who says that by the way?) Still though, Fran is still happy. Fran and Marla both gets kidnapped, Fran dies, kind of, and then gets revived, then Marla tells her they have to keep fighting, she just goes like, Ok, I'm ok with that. Her character seemed clearly underdeveloped for me, long story short. She had no role in the ongoing story, and that was the first thing I didn't like about the movie.

There's a second miss for me, the story development. So the movie is 118 minutes, 2 hours. But in that 2 hours, it feels like you're watching a 1 hour movie, and then a 1 hour sequel. The first half is a movie on it's own. Perfect writing, perfect acting. Just what I wanted from the movie, it delivered. The second half, meeh, I mean it was okay, but not as good as the first half, they tried to cut the ties and finish the story, but it just feels rushed. The problem here if you ask me, is that the plot develops rapidly in the first half, and everyone loves that, so there's nothing wrong, but it also gets kind of overdeveloped that the second half doesn't live up to it and just gets crushed trying to end it all. For example, there was a jewelry store clerk, which we didn't see ever again, for all we know she ran off with that piece of diamond. The story was so rushed in the second half that we couldn't even see the side characters develop. Jeniffer was so angry, and stayed in her cell for all the second half. Fran was just beaten to death, yet she came back to life in like half a day. The point is, it felt like the movie was rushing to the ending where everything would be ok. (Well, except for the poor old people getting scammed)

In the end though, it was hard not to like the movie. Not just because of the cast (For the second time, I didn't watch it because I saw her name on the poster alright?) but because of the edgy story, because of the deadly, and somehow funny events. It's a perfectly balanced dark comedy/thriller and we need those in the current state of our plagued world. I Care A Lot is a worthy title to watch and is a good option to invest your time in. That being said, there will be times you'll say, just get a gun! and get frustrated but that's okay, that's just cinema pumping you. We liked I Care A Lot for acting and for the well written story and we bet you will, too.

Cinemortals Rating : 8/10

Reviewed By : Batuhan