$$$

On racetracks one usually encounters people who are utterly convinced that
they are just one well-placed long-shot bet away from turning their life around
– and equally sure that they alone have mastered the art of foretelling who will
win and who will lose. Jake Remington’s »$$$« is the aptly titled story of two of
those people: Joe and Teo are best friends whose ideas of making quick money
revolve around crime and betting “on the ponies«. Teo‘s father Bobby puts
them in touch with an ex-colleague from his violent past as a contract killer.
The first deal that was thought to be foolproof ends fatal and Joe finds himself
with a lot of debt to the wrong people. In Joe’s world the only possible exit
is raising the bet. Shot in gritty black and white and starring amateur actors
playing versions of themselves, this merciless drama, like Bresson‘s classic
»L‘argent«, tells of the power of money to steal people‘s souls. In the seemingly
fatalistic radicalism of the mise-en-scene, Remington takes us so close to
the protagonists that you think you can taste, smell and feel their anger, their
despair and their obsession. A nightmare vision of the American dream from
the most hopeless corners of New York.