Money Monster

Year: 2016
Genre: Drama
Directed: Jodie Foster
Stars: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Denham, Lenny Venito, Emily Meade, Condola Rashad
Production: TriStar Pictures

The word "tricked" comes to mind when thinking of Money Monster. It's a movie that certainly sells itself as a strong indictment of Wall Street's greed culture and the media's complicity in said greed. But something happened on the way to the cinema. The film isn't just satisfied with pointing out and admonishing the well shellacked villains for hire at our financial institutions, it wants us, the viewer to understand our roll when we trade penny slots for penny stocks. Okay movie, I smell what you're stepping in, I just wish your tracks weren't so messy, muddy and awkward.

To be clear we're talking about poop

Lee Gates (Clooney) is the loud, flamboyant, bratty host of Money Monster, a cable news network financial show that explains the markets to twits complacent enough to watch. He and lead show-runner Patty Fenn (Roberts) have a symbiotic relationship based on witty banter and friendly professional animosity. The show starts out with much needed exposition on financial firm Ibis headed by squeaky-clean CEO Walt Camby (West). We then get our first good look at Kyle (O'Connell) a delivery handler with a grudge and a vest full of C4. He holds the show and its unwilling host hostage, refusing to defuse the bomb until Ibis answers for an $80 million algorithm glitch that carried off Kyle's life savings.

I knew I should have invested in housing!

Much of the movie puts the excitable Kyle and savvy Lee at odds with each other as Kyle spouts the same half-formed, "feel the Bern" prophecies you see everywhere on the internet. Lee interjects with knee-jerk defenses and in some cases ire inducing school-yard bullying. So much so that we become intimately acquainted with Patty's safe word to get him to shut up (the word is Sacajawea). They stall, and stall, and stall some more as producers, assistants, Ibis decision-makers and the police all set up for a long siege; all of which is on air for millions to see.

Money Monster literally lifts all of it's major story beats from Dog Day Afternoon (1975) only replace the masterful work of Al Pacino into the one-note clamminess of Jack O'Connell and replace the chants of "Attica" with "Occupy Wall Street". It'd be one thing if the film defined itself by the populist fervor it uses as a plot device. The Big Short (2015) did so with vitriolic glee becoming one of last year's finest films. Yet while wearing it's left-of-center themes like dainty candy-wrapping, Money Maker simply fails to rise above it's by the numbers hostage premise.

Also, government culpability: completely omitted

And it's not for lack of trying either. When Camby is exposed for the Capra-esque villain he is, the audience is meant to feel a sense of completion, yet that catharsis quickly dissipates when we realize the movie exposes one isolated incident while ignoring institutional problems. Not only does the film leave you without answers, but denies you the very tools you need to ask the right questions. It instead insists that unless we all collectively get off our smartphones and put a gun to their heads, the media isn't going to investigate fraud which kind of undermines the whole idea of a free press when you really think about it.

The movie saves its biggest gripes for a contrived third act showdown, laying the groundwork with Kyle's singular imbecility. during this time we're exposed to the failings of modern day sensationalism as crowds converge, chant and otherwise act like sycophants. This is best typified with a serious turning point in the film being turned into a disposable meme. Again, while the theme of greed being the byproduct of a tacitly approving and permanently distracted populous may seem near-poignant, it has not only been done in better films but feels a lot like pandering in Money Monster.

I will give it up for the marketing team behind this film. Utilizing the recognizable faces of it's talented cast and leaning heavily on its tertiary themes people won't know they're walking into the tired cliches of a Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) re-tread (yes I'm aware it's a remake). Some may even walk out thinking they saw a movie that matched the level of anger they have towards a rigged system. Thing is if you knew all the stuff investment firms, hedge funds and banks actually do and do legally, you'd want that anger meter to be dialed up to eleven.

Final Grade: D