J. Paul Getty, a one time world’s richest man, multi billionaire, with several wives and concubines, wasted sons and grandsons, refuses to pay ransom for his one grandson, J. Paul Getty II, kidnapped in Rome.
Donald Sutherland is playing J. Paul Getty and Hilary Swank as mother of J. Paul Getty II. Also seen is Brendan Fraser of the “Bedazzled” and “The Mummy” fame. This is a period drama set in 1973, with wired telephone and faxes and the atmosphere of those times.
The show is only one season with ten episodes. The first nine of them is gripping. It’s pretty tragi-comic with lots of wry humour. The tenth episode is somewhat a downer, but probably necessary to show the consequences of the actions done by the real actors. For one, it is shown that the ransom was used to build a port in Italy from where drugs were shipped back into the U.S..
There are two sets of casts, the American side with Sutherland and Swank in the lead and then, the Italian side. Since the kidnapping is done in Rome, most of the show has Italian casts and language.
A gripping drama which is a true story.
neerajshrivastav 