On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: BILLIONAIRE (Gravitas).

BILLIONAIRE
Larry Hillblom, billionaire and founder of DHL, dies in plane crash off his Micronesian island home, and dozens of would be heirs seek to lay claim to his billions.
By Sidney Falco

We’ve all been in the supermarket, glancing at the tabloids and wondering if perhaps, some odd story is remotely true. One of these stories that could have been ripped from the tabloids, yet is true, is the death Larry Hillblom, one of the Founders of DHL. Hillblom died in 1995 in a plane crash off the Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, near his home, on the island of Saipan. His body was lost at sea and his death was a mystery to some residents of Saipan. That is the simple part of the story. As Journalist Peter Manso (who covered what transpired after Hillblom’s death) says in the film, “That’s where the trouble starts.” After he died, dozens of would be heirs came forward to lay claim to Hillblom’s fortune.

BILLIONAIRE, directed by Alexis Spraic, is a fascinating story of a Man and his Fortune – I can see why the filmmaker was attracted to such material. Truth is stranger than fiction and this cliché proves true this time around. The film is part documentary, part mystery, and all entertaining. The mystery aspect centers mostly on whether or not a 10-year-old Filipino boy named Larry Jr. is the son of Larry Hillblom. Without getting too deep into the narrative (and some of the various legal complexities), all the elements are there for a ripe Hollywood drama: rich, greedy corporate men taking advantage of the poor; a local, small time Lawyer taking on a big corporation; tampering and destroying of DNA evidence; illicit and questionable sex, all for none other than a few billion dollars.

“Did Larry father Larry Jr.? Why was his Will never updated? And why did he have such an affinity for female virgin prostitutes? Some of those questions, and many others, you will get answers to while watching BILLIONAIRE, but the question I asked myself after the film was over was, who was the real Larry Hillblom? Frankly, you don’t know and I do not think the filmmakers know either. While a truly fascinating story, there is very little humanity in the Larry Hillblom portrayed in BILLIONAIRE, especially once the film’s narrative veers towards the mystery aspect of whether or not he fathered a child (a simple internet search will give you your answer if you do not want to see the film).