Steve Coogan excels in Michael Winterbottom's funny, angry, compelling broadside, GREED

OK: It wears its heart on its sleeve, as message movies from Brit director and sometimes writer, Michael Winterbottom often do. But since that message is an important and timely one, only the very wealthy, along with some of us more persnickety critics, will probably mind much. If GREED is neither as funny nor as incisive as it might have been, what's there is certainly smart and entertaining enough to pass muster as a worthwhile trip to the movies. Plus there's its star, Steve Coogan (at right), giving yet another of his knockout performances as Sir Richard McCreadie (rhymes with greedy), a supposedly uber-successful British retailer who seems to combine the nasty savvy of a Murdoch with the utter incompetence of Donald Trump.

Mr. Winterbottom, shown at left, gives us a little history of Sir Richard (even as a child, this guy was a major ass-wipe) then shows us how, as an adult, the man has taken over various companies, only to destroy them, while making himself and his family even wealthier. Most important are the sections set on the sub-continent where poorly-paid labor in the factories that supply McCreadie with his products are worked literally to death to make this man even richer. We also see Mr. Greedy making quite a show when called before a government inquiry into his dealings (below), during which Coogan brings forth his exquisite combo of smarminess and "hurt hauteur," as he defends himself and we learn even more of his misdeeds.

Throughout all this, comedy mixes with ugliness in roughly 50-50 fashion, and while we laugh at the antics, all of it comes at the price of our near-constant realization that this is Capitalism writ large and lousy: the ongoing destruction of current western civilization -- not to mention most of the rest of the world.

What saves the movie as entertainment is its central "event," a 60th in-costume birthday party for McCreadie that we watch being organized on a picturesque Greek island then brought to very creepy fruition, as family and fake-friends gather to celebrate this supposedly successful entrepreneur.

We meet his ex-wife (Isla Fisher, above, right), his mother (Shirley Henderson, below, left: an enabler par excellence), and especially his on-the-cusp-of-adulthood son (Asa Butterfield, below, right), who discovers a delightful and appropriate -- if ghastly -- way to work out his Oedipal issues.

As usual with Winterbottom, the camera is constantly on the move, with humor, insult, ugliness and message flying in from all directions. Thanks to the generally up-to-snuff dialog, and to the skill of Coogan and the rest of the cast, Greed never loses its momentum.

Look for a number of other famous performers (like Stephen Fry, above, left) to make appearances here, too. If the film doesn't offer state-of-the-art humor, satire and finger-pointing consistently, it hits its marks often enough to keep you alternately angry and entertained.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running 104 minutes, the film opened last week on the coasts and will hit theaters nationwide this Friday, March 6. Here in South Florida, you can find it at the following theaters: in the Miami area at the AMC Aventura Mall,  CMX Brickell City Center,  Silverspot Miami, Regal South Beach, and AMC Sunset Place; in Broward county at the Cinemark Paradise in Davie and Regal Magnolia Place in Coral Springs; in the Palm Beach county at the Movies Delray and Movies of Lake Worth, AMC Indian River,  Majestic 11, Regency Cinema 8 in Stuart, Regal Royal Palm, Cobb's Downtown at The Gardens in Palm Beach Gardens, and in Boca Raton at the Regal Shadowood and Cinemark Palace. Elsewhere? Click here to find a theater near you.

Sort-of streaming tip: Ishai Setton & Jim Beggarly's ensemble-com, THE KITCHEN

When you love an independent filmmaker's work as much as TrustMovies did THE BIG BAD SWIM -- the first full-length feature from director Ishai Setton and writer Daniel Schechter, you approach any later of their work with some trepidation. Sure enough, nothing has quite lived up to the enormous achievement of that initial movie. New to Netflix streaming, however, and worth a watch for its fast pace, sometimes smart dialog and mostly excellent performances, even if it doesn't hold a candle to "Swim," THE KITCHEN is the latest rom-com ensemble work form Mr. Setton, this time featuring with a screenplay by Jim Beggarly, who last year gave us the smarter and better Free Samples.

Mr. Setton, shown at left, does seem to favor ensemble casts -- Kitchen's is a lot larger than that of Swim -- and he handles them pretty well. In the latter movie, his excellent cast ranged over several decades in age. The Kitchen's array of young people sticks mostly to the 20s to 30 age range, and thus the interests and experience of these near-kids are much more limited. The focus here often seems more difficult for Setton and Beggarly to grasp firmly enough. In Beggarly's Free Samples, the focus was always on Jess Weixler (who also appeared in Swim), an actress who can easily keep that focus. In this latest movie, this is more difficult because the film-making team keeps shifting from person to person and back again, with a cast that includes at least a dozen, would-be important characters, all vying for your interest and time in a movie that lasts but 78 minutes.

The most important character here is Jennifer, played by Laura Prepon (above, left, and below, right), whose birthday it is today, with a big party organized for the occasion, even though she has just broken up with her boyfriend of two or three years (Bryan Greenberg, above, right) because he's been cheating on her. Just how and with whom becomes more and more apparent as the party movies along.

Jennifer's sister Penny (Dreama Walker, above, left, and below, right) has her own surprise up her sleeve (or under her midriff), and she in turn is lusted after by a young man called Kenny (Tate Ellington). Kenny & Penny: awww, that's so sweet!

Setton and Beggarly have told their tale in pretty-close-to-real-time fashion, which makes things move quickly. We don't grow bored, that's for certain. The movie takes place all in the same location, too: the kitchen and its immediate environs of the house where some of these folk live and in which the party is now going on.

But as characters come and go, babble and fight, offer tidbits of exposition that sometimes go places, sometimes not, we begin to want a little more. (Shown above are Pepper Binkley, left, and Amber Stevens, right.)

Jennifer is about to strike out on her own and open a new art gallery, which plays into things. But all the characters soon begin to seem awfully mindless and shallow -- even Jennifer, about whom we can't help but wonder what kind of a relationship she and her oh-so-obvious cad of a boyfriend had if she suspected nothing untoward was going on.

In the very large cast, lots of actors register pleasantly. I was particularly taken with Stan, the party planner (Matt Bush, above, left) and friend-of-a-friend named Nikki (Jillian Clare), being kissed against the kitchen shelving, below.

If the trials and tribulations of twenty-somethings jerk your chain, by all means give this little movie a watch. You can view it now on Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Video, and via DVD.