Anyone who’s ever been skeptical about the safety of capitalizing on cryptocurrency will have their worst suspicions confirmed by “Cold Wallet,” a shrewd and suspenseful thriller about three would-be working-class vigilantes determined to retrieve their investments from an amoral scammer. Right from the start, director Cutter Hodierne develops a rooting interest in his self-styled avengers, even as (also right from the start) it’s clear that they are in way, way over their heads and sinking lower as the plot progresses.
We’re introduced to Billy (Raúl Castillo), an underemployed screw-up, while he loudly proclaims to other customers in a Berkshires karaoke bar that he’s been “following crypto since that Game Stop thing,” and brags that his investment in a currency called Tulip is going nowhere but up. But it really isn’t, much to his shock after he promises his young daughter (Joanna Sylvie Weinig) that he’ll soon have enough to buy a new house where they can occasionally spend time away from her mom, his incredulous skeptical ex-wife (Zoë Winters).
Reportedly, Tulip mastermind Charles Hegel (played with perfect measure of condescending arrogance by Josh Brener) has died in Kenya, and took with him all the necessary passwords needed to access the accounts of his many investors. Not only is Billy broke, but he finds he is credited with a $42,163 deficit on the Tulip account he has been locked out of. Dom (Tony Cavalero), his best buddy, martial arts instructor and fellow Tulip victim, is in a comparably shaky situation — he had planned to use his crypto profits to establish his own dojo — but his pacifist philosophy tempers his rage. For a while, at least.
That’s where Eva (Melonie Diaz) comes in. Billy has been communicating with her on Reddit “for over a year” without actually meeting her, but insists that she’s trustworthy and, perhaps more important, a world-class hacker. She easily sees through Hegel’s chicanery — she knowingly notes that fake Kenyan death certificates are easily obtained — and, with just a bit more online detective work, determines that the allegedly deceased mogul is hiding out in a secluded mansion within driving distance. She proposes that she, Billy and Dom “go whale hunting” and force Hegel to return funds to every bilked investor. Or at she puts it: “We Robin Hood that shit.”
It’s a half-baked scheme, of course, but the beauty of the totally committed performances by Castillo, Cavalero and Diaz is that, while their characters may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, they are far from stupid, and much closer to cunning. You can believe these desperate folks could convince themselves that they would succeed with their high-stakes home invasion game plan, despite their lack of criminal expertise and the long odds against them.
There are faint echoes here and there of other home invasion movies — and a nod in the direction of Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan” — but “Cold Wallet” (billed as a movie “presented by Steven Soderbergh”) marches to the beat of its own drum. Hodierne, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with John Hibey, leavens the suspense with dollops of jet-black comedy, especially when the trio visits a gun store to purchase weaponry, and encounter a perky clerk who’s eager to sell them “the same [type of] gun that John Wick uses.” (She also pitches another type of firearm to Eva: “The Beretta is on sale if you sign up for our rewards program.”) Later, after they have somehow managed to break into Hegel’s mansion, the unarmed Dom’s repeated reluctance to do Hegel bodily harm (even while interrogating the hoaxer) becomes a running gag that quite possibly could have a fatal payoff.
On the other hand, Hegel sounds seriously (and unexpectedly) honest when he insists that he doesn’t have with him the “cold wallet” (an offline storage device where info can be hidden from prying eyes) that would allow him to transfer funds. Not only that, but he claims that such a humongous transfer would alert his co-conspirators and the Feds. The home invaders don’t buy his story and force Hegel to contact an assistant (Genevieve Adams) and have her deliver to him by morning the incriminating contents of a safety deposit box in the Cayman Islands.
Thus, the long night’s journey into day grows increasing fraught, as “Cold Wallet” constantly dangles the possibility — no, make that the probability — that something terrible might happen at any moment, unless something worse happens first.
Oliver Miller’s evocative cinematography is an invaluable asset, during both scenes set outside in wintery locations and the claustrophobic interior of Hegel’s mansion. And take note of the subtle use of incongruous music. Listen closely, and you can hear the strains of “Silent Night” as Billy, Dom and Eva trudge through the snow toward Hegel’s residence.
How does it all end? Without giving the game away: It is so wickedly ironic that, if you’re watching at home, you may be tempted to immediately watch the entire movie again, just to better appreciate how smoothly everything relentlessly leads to that finale.