Read @ Joe’s

Title: Midas (2024) Director: TJ Noel-Sullivan Writer: TJ Noel-Sullivan Studio: Hartford Film Company IMDb Plot: After a charismatic college dropout lies his way into a job at an insurance juggernaut, he recruits his two best friends for a plot to steal thousands. In the process, they uncover a much darker scheme that tests the limits of their greed. Joe Says: Midas is a mostly-harmless, Gen-Z heist movie that tries to shine like gold.

Indie writer/director TJ Noel-Sullivan has invested an interesting premise for his first full-length release: healthcare fraud. Or, to gleam another angle, uncovering the healthcare providers’ fraudulent practices. In the movie Midas, Noel-Sullivan shows both sides. And neither shines like gold.

Midas tells the story of Ricky (Laquan Copeland), a twenty-something trying to figure out life while helping his mom start her home-made food delivery service. Ricky gets invited to a party by his friend Sunita (Preet Kaur) hosted by the CEO of Midas, the gold-standard in healthcare. During the party, Ricky tap dances his way into both landing a job as a claims adjuster and scoring a date with the lovely Claire (Lucy Powers). Both feats amaze Sunita, who is but a lowly worker in the Midas mail room.

Ricky begins hanging with Claire while negotiating the cubicle farm overlorded by Tom (Erik Bloomquist, who gives a wonderfully snobby performance). In doing so, he discovers his mother’s expired benefits. His mother is suffering from cancer and requires a surgery her current coverage cannot handle. Ricky gets the idea to reinstall her benefits and approve her claim. Naturally, this validation requires more than a click of a button.

Noel-Sullivan orchestrates Midas from pseudo-situational comedy between friends Ricky, Sunita, and Victor (Federico Parra) into a mostly-harmless, Gen-Z heist movie as the three plan for blatant thievery. The hip-hop soundtrack kicks in as Noel-Sullivan employs stylized split screen work that both picks up the pace while nostalgically calling back to the works of Peckinpah and Jewison.

Through it all, Claire, who happens to be the daughter of Midas’s CEO Gregory (TV veteran actor Bob Gallagher), provides a balance of commentary between Ricky’s 21st century update of sticking-it-to-the-man, while unveiling the riches garnered by Big Business corporate healthcare. After all, seeing as how the common person spends as much as 20-50% of a regular paycheck for basic health benefits, it is no wonder that corporations view such as spinning gold. 

The commentary is there. And the commentary should have gone deeper.

As should have the stakes in the plot.

Midas is a comfortable Toyota Corolla; one with great mileage and an expected result. There is lots of fun to be had with a Corolla. However, Midas thinks it is an Aston Martin Vantage. The presentation is there, and the ride is smooth, but the performance is not full-on prestige. Once the digital heist started, the accelerator should have been floored, shooting up all the drama and chaos and consequences in its dust. Yet none of that happens.

This is Noel-Sullivan’s first movie out of the gate and he plays it safe. Midas is an enjoyable movie with well-rounded, nicely-performed characters. One that invites discussion and, for those in the know, has a prominent shout out to the Hartford Whalers (still one of the best logos ever). The story provides viewpoints for Claire, who is ironically against big business; Ricky, who has personal family-sized stakes; and even Gregory, who explains his side of the business and the benefit to capitalism. However, Midas does not fully capture the conflict that comes with all three views. Ricky’s anger escalates yet the on-screen tension fails to properly rise. A third act should present options for overcoming the obstacles built in the first two while fostering character growth as a result of those consequences. Ricky’s plight becomes wild but the presentation around him remains as calm as lounge lo-fi.

Midas might not be a king-sized feast but is certainly fast-food tasty.