Billy was the world’s biggest evangelist for Tulip until the exchange crashed. With his frozen account in free-fall, his hopes of regaining joint-custody of his daughter appear dashed. However, his fellow crypto reddit buddy Eva somehow learns Hegel, the man behind Tulip, faked his death and has holed-up in his remote country estate.
Together with Eva and Dom, the gym-owner he convinced to invest in Tulip, decide to confront Hegel and extract the money he swindled from investors. Of course, it is not that simple. All Hegel’s funds are safeguarded in cold wallets, access to which require pass-phrases he keeps off site. Thus begins a battle of wits between the captive and his aggrieved captors.
Unfortunately, it is not exactly a battle royale. For the most part, Cold Wallet plays like a warmed over A Simple Plan, as the three home invaders give bizarre credence to the words of the man they hate the most. Frankly, it is hard to fathom why Steven Soderbergh lent the film his “presented by” imprimatur. All that really distinguishes John Hibey’s screenplay is Hegel’s dialogue that supposedly lays bare the truth of so-called “predatory capitalism.” Yet, many of the Sam Bankman-Frieds of the world are actually self-styled social justice warriors.
Cold Wallet just underwhelms. Everything Hodierne and Hibey learned about crypto for the first act is largely forgotten during the conventional standoff that follows. Disappointingly mediocre, Cold Wallet is not recommended when it opens this Friday (2/28) in LA at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.
