InCold Wallet, a trio of scammed Redditorstake a crypto billionaire hostageto recover their money, but face tragic consequences when their ill-conceived plan goes predictably awry.Cold Wallet’spertinent themes and interesting premise unfortunately fall apart in a brainless narrative.The lure of easy digital money has baited countless people and left the desperate penniless. Just look at the fallout from the Hawk Tuah meme coin debacle (or our own President’s). It’s entirely plausible that irate investors would seek retribution. The problem here is that anysuspension of disbelief evaporates with rank ineptitudeand plot holes you could drive a truck through.
On a snowy Christmas Eve, Billy (Raúl Castillo) gets drunk at a bar with his best friend. Dom (Tony Cavalero), a deeply spiritual MMA trainer, listens to Billy’s boasts of a guaranteed fortune with “Jingle Bell Rock” blasting in the background. He’s got a surefire bet that will solve their financial woes, and he just wants to borrow some money to buy Tulip cyptocurrency. It’s going through the roof, and they’d better jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late.
Fool’s Gold
Cold Wallet
After losing everything in a cryptocurrency scam, a ragtag team of vigilante Redditors tries to kidnap the kingpin who ruined their lives. However, when the home invasion takes a turn for the worse, they find themselves victims in a sadistic game.
Billy stumbles to his former home with an expensive gift. His daughter is ecstatic at the Christmas bonanza, but Billy’s ex-wife wants him out immediately. He owes child support and mortgage payments. Billy swears he’ll have a new house soon. He breaks out his trading app as proof of newfound wealth, but gets a nasty surprise when the account has plummeted.He actually owes money after losing everything.
News stations report that the Tulip exchange has gone offline after the mysterious death of its founder, Charles Hegel (Josh Brener). Massive amounts of money are missing and all the customers are locked out of their accounts. Billy’s horror turns to fury after an instant message.Eva (Melonie Diaz), a hacker he met through an online forum, thinks Hegel faked his death and stole the money.She searched his transactions and found the address of a remote mansion. That has to be where he’s hiding, and where they can get their money back.
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It’s awfully convenient to have Eva living near Billy and Dom. Then even more unbelievable to have Hegel, who could literally be anywhere in the world, within striking distance of the ragtag crew. Let’s accept those coincidences and follow our mismatched protagonists on their quest.You’ll laugh out loud as they get armed in a purposely satirical scene.That humor dissipates as they approach the house in a blizzard with a bare-bones plan and no clue about what awaits them.
The first glaring wrinkle is that none of the characters wear masks, gloves, or anything to conceal their identity. I’m no criminal mastermind, but logic dictates a mansion should have some kind of security system with cameras. Hegel obviously couldn’t call the authorities if he’d faked his own death, but it’s foolish to think he would be a sitting duck easily caught by inexperienced criminal wannabes. Screenwriter John Hibey (Lift) depicts Billy and Dom as borderline simpletons acting on impulse, while the ostensibly smart Eva is so aggrieved, she acts rashly and throws caution to the wind.None of this makes sense when walking blindly into a potentially dangerous situation.What if Hegel had a pit bull and machine gun?
Inept Criminals
Eyes will roll as the deed commences, with Hegel hamming it up as the textbook capitalist villain.Anyone who meant serious business would have beaten the money out of Hegel in short order. He can tell they’re amateurs and tries to drive a wedge between them. These scenes are a stretch to say the least.
It’s also ludicrous that Hegel isn’t sufficiently bound or gagged. He drones on like a remorseless Bernie Madoff as the other characters inexplicably separate and roam the house on a walking tour. This was purposely done by Hibey and director Cutter Hodierne, in his feature debut, to frame their motivations. People with nothing left resort to drastic measures. That sounds good on paper, but doesn’t work if the audience has no confidence in their abilities. It’s akin to watching a trainwreck in slow motion.
Catastrophic Crypto Crashes
Cold Wallet, a term that’s defined as a method to store cryptocurrency offline, does accurately portray the crypto gold rush and the lemmings' mentality of duped armchair traders.Hibey and Hodierne get style points for a fleeting image ofGameStop in a reference to the Roaring Kitty financial fiasco. Billy, Dom, and Eva are fashioned after the legion of Redditors playing the markets like Russian roulette. They fall prey to market volatility and pump-and-dump scams with little recourse. Billy accurately complains that they’ll get “no bailout.” The average investor gets screwed while the fraudsters usually skate scot-free. That’s a sobering truth and the real lesson to this story.
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Anyone trying to take matters into their own hands through violence is sure to suffer a worse fate.Cold Walletdoesn’t hold up to scrutiny.I could have railed on about the sloppy climax and third act, but the point is already made. It’s too bad, because the film had sufficient meat on the bone. A tighter script with better written characters would have done the premise justice.Cold Walletis a Vanishing Angle production. It will have a concurrent VOD and limited theatrical release on February 28th from Well Go USA Entertainment.
