House of Gucci (2021) * *

Directed by:  Ridley Scott

Starring:  Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, Salma Hayek, Jack Huston

House of Gucci is 153 minutes of buildup and about four minutes of payoff.   This is the A-list cast of A-list casts and they deliver as well as can be expected, but soon we're impatiently waiting for all of this backstabbing, scheming, and conflict to come to its head already.   The actors are having fun in roles which give them a license to overact, but to their credit they don't.... mostly.   Jared Leto under makeup looks like Benjamin Franklin with a mustache in his role as Paolo.  He's a sad, pathetic Gucci  trying to make a name for himself.   He wants to be a designer, but as his uncle Rodolfo (Irons) succinctly puts it:  "Don't ever show these designs to anyone."  Such scenes are few and far between. 

Based on a true story, House of Gucci is told from the point of view of Patrizia (Gaga), who works as an accountant in her father's trucking business.   One night at a party, she meets the awkward Maurizio Gucci (Driver) and she is smitten with him, or at least his last name.   Maurizio falls in love with Patrizia, which doesn't sit well with his father, the aforementioned Rodolfo, who soon disowns Maurizio.   Patrizia and Maurizio live their lives working for her father, she as an accountant and he has a truck washer, until Maurizio's Uncle Aldo (Pacino) invites him back into the family fold.   Patrizia now has another way into the Gucci fortune and after Maurizio regains his share after Rodolfo dies, she schemes to oust Aldo and his son Paolo (Leto) out of their share and thrust Maurizio into the forefront of the Gucci name and business.   As far as Maurizio's abilities as the controlling shareholder of Gucci, well he's a better truck washer.  

Everyone speaks English in distracting Italian accents which I always wonder why they're done at all.  We know the characters are all Italian.  Let them speak without accents.  So what if the movie doesn't have a dialect coach?   Despite their fame and fortune, the members of the Gucci family are desperately unhappy with themselves and each other, and they let us know it in all of their accented glory. 

All of this leads up to the eventual murder of Maurizio by a hit man hired by Patrizia and her psychic best friend (Hayek).   The murder itself and its aftermath are covered by an epilogue.   This may or may not be a spoiler for you, but House of Gucci is more interested in the supposed intrigue of a disintegrating family.   In theory, with these actors, such a topic would be engrossing enough to keep our attention, but House of Gucci tells this story at a snail's pace.  We're left with a story that doesn't measure up to the talent in front of the camera.