Film Review: BABY MONEY: A Sleek and Slim Thriller of a Heist Gone Wrong [Fantasia 2021]

Baby Money Review

Baby Money (2021) Film Review from the 25th Annual Fantasia International Film Festival, a movie directed by Mikhael Bassilli and Luc Walpoth, starring Danay Garcia, Michael Drayer, Joey Kern, Taja V. Simpson, Jean St. James, Travis Hammer, Vernon Taylor III, Christopher Kriesa, Eric Davis, Robert Mammana, Al Burke, Cooper Rivers, Richard Bon Bon Centeno, Hannah Reese, Filip Sertic, Kenneth Beck, and Esteban Alejandro.

Sometimes all you need out of a thriller is just that: thrills. Nothing dense nor particularly stylish, just a good palate cleanser to get your heart rate up and to freak you out. To that end, directors Mikhael Bassilli and Luc Walpoth are more than happy to provide with their feature-length debut Baby Money, a story about how small-timers can mess up in big-time fashion.

Upon finding out that she’s pregnant and worried about how she’ll support the baby, gentlemen’s club dancer Minny (Danay Garcia) and her working-class boyfriend Gil (Michael Drayer) decide to take part in a small suburban heist for some windfall profits. With Gil clearly being the odd man out amidst the stoic Dom (Joey Kern) and the somewhat unhinged Tony (Travis Hammer), Minny is uneasy about the gig and wants to reconsider their participation. Gil, however, with a stubborn sense of masculine provision, convinces her to stick it out. The guys need a watchpoint and getaway driver, after all.

But Minny’s fear comes to life after a slew of missteps quickly makes the heist go south. She and Gil are split up, forced to make individual treks across the San Fernando Valley to shake the police and other predatory creatures of the night, and accidentally ensnaring an unsuspecting mother and her son (Taja V. Simpson and Vernon Taylor III, respectively) along the way. With their cash-out window continuously shrinking, Minny and Gil are forced to juggle their sanity ­­– and even their relationship – as they try to beat the clock with both the money and their own lives.

Bassilli and Walpoth, along with co-writer MJ Palo, aren’t really operating on any deep levels here. They offer plenty of crevasses into which you could drive a wedge to help excavate some buried context – particularly regarding the various microaggressions experienced by women and people of color, and the sense of grace they’re forced to keep while under immense amounts of pressure – but these moments are few and rather insignificant.

But, in all honesty, that lack of thematic depth doesn’t really matter because Baby Money is such a sleek and slim thriller that glides by solely on its refined sense of grit. Thematic accoutrement would’ve been appreciated, but it also would’ve weighed down the film’s rapid momentum. At its core, Baby Money is a story about a small group of fuck-ups fucking up even more, zeroed in on one small window of time that puts just how badly they fucked up into anxiety-inducing perspective.

While it doesn’t unfold exactly in real time, Baby Money does progress in a very organic manner. We feel the same agony that the characters do as they face the unknown, with the minutes dragging by at a sluggish pace; however, we also feel the palpitations of fear when time suddenly speeds up and the situation spins on a dime, forcing everyone to improvise in the moment.

The film is also content in maintaining its small scope, never reaching for grandeur nor succumbing to stylized flourishes. Everything feels more or less “real” and Bassilli and Walpoth are more than happy to play it as such. Even moments that feel like they were meant to be comic relief based on their overall placement – like Gil and Tony trying to decide on a new plan, or Minny trying to egg on the bar creep (Robert Mammana) so that she can get a free ride – are neither comical nor relieving, because after all, a real botched robbery wouldn’t allow for those breather moments in the first place. (Alternatively, you could view this set-up as these criminals being such a collection of fuck-ups that their failure extends beyond the realm of their narrative, and they can’t even land a joke within the cinematic structure that they’re intrinsically a part of. For shame!)

There are plenty of loose ends and MacGuffins sprinkled throughout, but more so out of the sheer nature of existence rather than the presence of an overarching plot. These items don’t demand clarification because we as the audience are on par with these lowly criminals: we’re not privy to such information and we don’t need to be, we just need said information to keep moving our own plot/lives along. That sort of ambiguity adds to the sleekness of the central story, and it also make the unknowns all the more disquieting. Bassilli and Walpoth throw us into the weeds from the get-go and never let us out of that brush, like Good Time by way of Blue Ruin as directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka.

The capable cast keeps the film moving at a clip, too, with Garcia being the no-nonsense-but-still-terrified coordinator holding everything together and Gil being the well-intentioned-but-ultimately-clueless third-wheel burglar. The real stand-out is Hammer as the blue-tongued Tony, who slowly devolves into an untethered sense of mania over the course of the bungled night. Hammer affects Tony with a cool sense of crazy, akin to Dwight Yoakam’s turn as the mysterious Raoul in Fincher’s underappreciated Panic Room. Oumi Kapila’s heavy electronica score gives the film a punctuating pulse, as well, adding more fuel to the film’s already panicked vibes.

Baby Money is a terrific debut about a convoluted conundrum, all presented with a visceral sense of competence. Cash this one out and run with it as soon as you can.

Rating: 7/10

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