COLD WALLET
(director/writer: Cutter Hodierne; screenwriter: John Hibey: story by John Hibey; cinematographer: Oliver Millar; editor: Kate Hickey; music: Patrick Taylor, Andrew Silagy; cast: Raúl Castillo (Billy), Melonie Diaz (Eva), Tony Cavalero (Dom), Josh Brener (Charles Hegel), Genevieve Adams (Kelly), Zoë Winters (Eileen), Joanna Sylvie Weinig (Stephy); Runtime: 84; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: John Hibey, Benjamin Wiessner, Cutter Hodierne; Vanishing Angle; 2024)
“More or less tells us the small investor is no match for the crooked capitalists who operate a rigged system like crypto.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A Cold Wallet in the techno-crypto-finance world is a safe place where you stash bit-coins for emergencies.
This is the story of some small investors who think they’ve stumbled upon a way for common folks like themselves to make quick money. When duped out of their money, they seek revenge on the shadowy man who has stolen their cash. But as a home invasion unfolds to get their money back, things don’t exactly go as planned.
Director-writer Cutter Hodierne (“Fishing Without Nets”/”Remember The Warriors: Wakefield The Movie”) and co-writer John Hibey use his story to tell the half-true thriller about a comedic crypto heist gone awry as it questions if today’s crypto world is an ethical place for an investor.
The film is set in the wintry Massachusetts Berkshires.
The blue-collar worker Billy (Raúl Castillo), a deadbeat, is divorced from his wife Eileen (Zoë Winters). He plans to buy with crypto a home so he can have his young daughter, Stephy (Joanna Sylvie Weinig), over for frequent visits. But he gets scammed and loses everything for himself and his pseudo-spiritual best friend gym owner Dom (Tony Cavalero). Thereby Billy gets his chat room friend, the gritty techie Eva (Melonie Diaz), to help. The three plan a home invasion on the guy who scammed him, the shadowy Tulip Fund CEO guy that the computer hacker Eva tracked down, who stole their money and vanished. But when they find him at home, after he faked his death in Kenya, they discover the shifty and venomous tongued turd, Charles Hegel (Josh Brener), tries talking his way out of the jam by playing each of them off the other and giving them some bull story, as the con keeps changing as he lies that his assistant (Genevieve Adams) in the Cayman Islands will get them a Cold Wallet.
The pic more or less tells us the small investor is no match for the crooked capitalists who operate a rigged system like crypto.
The informative film is presented by Steven Soderbergh.
It played at the SXSW Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 3/20/2024 GRADE: B-