As the dust was still settling in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, politicians, lawyers, and CEOs were all busy at work trying to determine how to compensate the victim’s families – and protect the airline companies from crippling lawsuits – all without bankrupting the entire economy in the process.  Leading the impossible process was Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton), Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), and their firm of alternative mediation lawyers.   

Biopics, especially modern ones, are always difficult to discuss because while the real-life actions of the people which the films represent are often noble, the quality of the filmmaking can greatly alter our perception of what happened.  For the context of this review, all mentions of Ken or others by name would be in reference to the actors’ performance.  I wanted to take a moment to clarify because Worth, unfortunately, is full of filmmaking choices which often get in the way of the story of Feinberg and as the 118-minute film drags on, it becomes more and more clear that he was not the best choice of entry point into the story. 

While Keaton brings his usual charm and is palatable enough to keep us from backing out after 20 minutes to find another Netflix Original, the script does him no favors.  So much of the film finds Ken looking at the families he is trying to secure fair compensation for as numbers in his formula and that mindset makes it so hard to view him as a person that actually cares.  The only reason he does not seem that bad is because he is the only one standing up to the comically capitalist Lee Quinn (Tate Donovan). When you further weave in footage from the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, or the passing references and shots of ground zero, or a throwaway line about how Priya (Shunori Ramanathan) is nervous about being in an elevator, Ken just seems more and more callous and uncaring with each scene as he goes about his day seemingly unaffected by the tragedy that enveloped the country and just mildly annoyed that he can’t get people to sign on to his plan. 

The easiest comparison to make is Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters (2019) which finds Mark Ruffallo as Rob Bilott, the attorney who took on the DuPont Company in a sweeping environmental class action lawsuit after they contaminated a town’s water supply with unregulated chemicals.  We get to see Bilott grow as a character and as a person as he begins to uncover everything that DuPont did and how it affected the population.  In Worth, Ken does not go through any arc until the final few minutes of the film and instead of using the stories of the families as a window into Ken as a person and not just a lawyer, we instead get those moments that are supposed to be humanizing for him as he periodically visits the site for his custom-built home; a luxurious seaside, beachfront estate. 

This is Max Borenstein’s first feature script outside of Warner Bros. Monsterverse and it is so misguided and devoid of tact as it hammers down the most basic of concepts repeatedly, complete with a call from the President saying he would not wish Ken’s job on his worst enemy.  It is clear that he has zero trust or confidence in us as an audience given the frequency that this concept of how difficult it must be to place a dollar amount to a human life is comes up in conversation and it is matched only by constant reminder and intertitles of the ever-approaching deadline to gain supporters of the Victim Compensation Fund. 

This misstep in the framing of the film becomes all the more obvious when we are introduced to Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci), who lost his wife the day the towers fell.  He is immediately more sympathetic towards the victims’ families and sees them as people with lives and stories instead of just numbers.  Because the film treats him like an antagonist towards Ken for much of the runtime, it becomes increasingly difficult to watch Ken at work as he makes for a poor protagonist in the way Borenstein chooses to tell this story.  Had we instead had Wolf as our entry point to the story, Ken’s eventual change of heart and refusal to give in to the pressure from Quinn to generously payoff the families of the top earners would actually feel like a victory that was fought and won for the people instead of for the system. 

Worth, however, is not really worried about paying any meaningful tribute to the families forever changed by the attacks, but rather it is a work of performative sympathy that weaponizes our emotions surrounding the events of September 11^th to elicit a gut reaction from its audience to hide the fact that it is both poorly made and ill conceived.  In a moment of unintentional self-awareness, the script has Ken tell Charles that he can be coached on when to quiver his lip or when to cry in order to help gain support for the compensation fund all while it continues to emotionally manipulate its audience without the slightest hint of subtlety.   

The script also makes sure to bring in as many viewpoints as possible, not that it has much to say about any of them, but it wants to cash in on easy emotions.  It makes sure that it covers the LGBTQ+ and the immigrant experience in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but it treats those people and everyone else that meets with Ken’s team in such a transactional manner because up until those final minutes Ken just doesn’t care.  Since many of the people we do see in the film are composites, you think the script would be able to take their stories at a macro level and still be able to honor them in a more respectable manner, but Worth plays out more as an ego piece for its central figure than an actual tribute to the families it portrays. 

Worth will certainly hold a strong place on the Worst of the Year list for 2021.  With each passing scene, it becomes an increasingly uncomfortable, disgusting, frustrating, and downright exploitative film to watch.  While it tries to show Ken as a reformed and redeemed person by the end, it does so little to actually build that arc up during the runtime.  Simply put, there is nothing redeemable about this film and the sooner it fades out of the Netflix algorithm and is forgotten about entirely, the better.