When you see a one hundred dollar bill, something in your chest catches. For a lot of us, that’s still a lot of money, and that singular piece of cash still feels luxurious, major, and, at times, unattainable–if you saw that big of a bill on the street, you would dive to grab it. Money is a great equalizer, but it is given Robert-Altman-esque life in Tony Mucci’s gritty, funny, rambunctious directorial debut, Money Talk$.
I have never seen a film where a piece of money was given such an arc. On a cold, wintry night in New York City in 1981, a one hundred dollar bill flies out of a taxi cab window before it is picked up by a grandmother on her way to her grandson’s birthday. That tyke, Benji in Mucci’s story, goes to a toy store like any kid would, but that piece of paper then trades hands from person to person without discriminating. It is given and taken from the old, the young, the male, the female, from the rich to the poor.
“My grandma would give me a birthday card with a hundred dollars in it even when I was young,” Mucci says. “It became like a tradition, and I remember joking about her in my freshman year of high school where I wondered where this bill was before it ended up in my birthday card. So I am like Benji from the film, essentially. My friends and I would joke about how ninety percent of United States dollar bills have cocaine residue on them, and money doesn’t just carry value but [also] a sort of memory of where it’s going. I was originally going to set it in the 1970s, but then I landed on 1981 because of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. He is a very much an American president, especially with economics, and it was the height of the Cold War. He was the kind of president that when he spoke, everybody listened, and it reminded me about how he got his start in acting. On a personal level, I picked this time because I fucking love Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In movie theaters in 1981, you had Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, and Raging Bull. There’s so much rich pop culture at that time, and I view New York as the Great American City.”
When Benji takes his money to that toy store, he reaches for Star Wars toys on high shelves. I love how the boxes have a worn quality to them, and Mucci confirms that Kevin McAllister was an inspiration for the look of Benji’s winter hat and coat as he wanders around looking for treasures. A small television behind the front counter is playing Reagan’s inauguration speech, and we hear him say the phrase (let’s take a deep breath together, shall we…) ‘Make America Great Again.’ Mucci almost didn’t put it in the film.
“I debated about that quite a bit before I decided to lean into it because it says something about history and America,” he admits. “We’re in some sort of capitalistic American cycle, and, at the end of the day, American’s put Trump back in office. As much as we hate that, it definitely still happened, and I think it speaks to the flaws in our system and to the brainwashing of the information age of social media. I will go on Twitter and see people talking about movies and art and then random shit about how Trump is being shoved down our throats. A lot of people still don’t know that Make American Great Again was actually Reagan’s thing, but Trump steals things. My father is Anthony Scarmucci, for those people who may not know. He was the communications director in The White House, and he worked for Barack Obama before he was on Trump’s staff. I think it says something about America and about how history repeats itself.”
Mucci takes every opportunity to put the camera in new places, and we even see things from the point of view of the edge of that one hundred dollar bill. The camera swings in on the door to a cab, is inside a refrigerator, tucked into a stripper’s bra, and even in someone’s mouth in a moment of danger. Mucci’s experience in directing music videos grants him permission to take more risks in how he lures us into the story visually.
“I come from a heavy music video background,” Mucci says. “That medium allows you to be more abstract and weird with a camera’s movement or with visual effects. I started shot listing, because, the way I write, I can see the edit in my head and I try to get that out. I then started working with my friend David [Mazouz], who plays Franklin, and we worked together to make a proper script. Since it is my debut film, I wanted my style to come across as much as possible.
The director’s relationship with the camera is one of the most important things ever since that is how the story is being told. If you go back and look at the best movies from the ’40s and ’50s, like with Alfred Hitchcock, or look at the films of Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, you can see that. Spielberg, for example, is the best here in showing how the camera goes to point A and then point B. Point B shows us something put on a table–like a box or an envelope–and then point C is the person seeing that happening and then opening it. There is a flow of attention where your eyes are going, and I was trying to channel those directors since I grew up loving them. I was really going for the childlike wonder of Spielberg with the grit of Scorsese at the same time.”
Tyler Senerchia plays an intimidating drug dealer in Money Talk$, and he will be known to a legion of fans as the AEW wrestler, Hook. When Franklin, the toy store employee played by Mazouz, is taking out the garbage, we see Senerchia approaching him before shoving a gun into Franklin’s mouth. The camera is placed just behind Franklin’s teeth, and I love how Mucci echoes the themes of America with the flag patch on the rim of Senerchia’s hat. Senerchia, in his acting debut, quickly reveals who some of his favorite directors are before explaining how wrestling and acting can complement each other.
“Some of my favorite directors include Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, and John Cassavetes,” Senerchia says. “Everything that I’ve learned in wrestling directly translates over to acting and vice versa. Everywhere I look, I see parallels to wrestling, so I feel like one hand washes the other when it comes to that. I’ve been an athlete my entire life and I have also loved film at the same time, but that was viewed more through a directorial lens, I think. Once I started wrestling, I developed more of an appreciation for the performance of acting, and it opened me up to a world of experiences.”
Mucci and Senerchia have known each other for years, so it was easy for them to get back into a rhythm of working together.
“We grew up adjacent to each other in Long Island and played lacrosse together in college,” Mucci says. “We both played the same position, and we hit it off instantly. I think the sport has a reputation for some players to be a little smug or college players might party on the weekends. We didn’t really do that. Tyler is very meticulous and he’s really good with PhotoShop and design, so when I was doing music videos, things fell into place and he became a designer for me. His dad is a professional wrestler, and I always felt safer with him around in college. Franklin and the drug dealer were the oldest characters in my head.
I got to go to Hook’s first match as a professional wrestler, and everyone was booing him, but then, like a year later, there are people with signs with his head on it or they are wearing shirts with his name on it. It’s so cool to see his character in the wrestling world. Wrestling’s tough–it’s like Shakespearean superhero battles.”
With all this talk of money, it’s natural to wonder what Mucci and Senerchia would do if they stumbled on a piece of cash on the sidewalk. Do you stuff it in your pocket before anyone sees you? Would you let it burn a hole in your pocket? Before we said goodbye on our Zoom chat, Mucci unfolded the one hundred dollar bill that was used in the film.
“If I found one hundred on the street, I’d probably take it and run,” Senerchia says, with a laugh.
“I would definitely go spend it on a bunch of Star Wars toys,” Mucci says. “Very Benji. What’s cool about a hundred dollars is that you can really leave an impression and make someone’s day. I’d probably grease someone’s pockets.”
Money Talk$ will next play HollyShorts Film Festival.
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