Review #1,086: 'Money Monster' (2016)

Wall Streets fat cats are the target of Jodie Foster's real-time thriller Money Monster, as a live broadcast of a tacky but successful financial advice show is turned into edge-of-the-seat entertainment by those watching. It's a satire of both our eagerness to lap up whatever gibberish were told as long as it promises to make us money, and our morbid fascination with watching live streams of death and destruction in the era of information. Although both subjects have been tackled before, it's an intriguing premise, especially with the acting talent involved. Sadly, Foster seemingly hasn't picked up on the skills of David Fincher and Martin Scorsese while under their direction, and Money Monster is a toothless, unfocused effort.

Financial expert Lee Gates (George Clooney) is about to air the latest edition of Money Monster, a show in which he dishes out money-making advice on the stock market in a cynical, over-the-top style. In the wake of a technical 'glitch' in a trading algorithm which cost stockholders £800 million, IBIS CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) pulls out of a live interview, leaving IBIS chief communications officer Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) to face Gates' questions instead. Once the show goes live, delivery driver Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) bursts onto the set with a gun and a home-made bomb jacket, demanding answers to why the $60,000 he invested in IBIS has vanished without explanation, leaving Gates and his trusted director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) to track down Camby and keep Kyle distracted.

The real-time format seems custom made for tension and excitement, but Foster displays little talent for setting the pulses racing. Her approach is to shoot clinically and unfussily, similar in many ways to Clint Eastwood, who has made some excellent movies, but whose films of late have been somewhat cold and careless. It blows its wad early on, serving up all the best moments before the film really gets going. Although he is hardly the buffoon he plays regularly under the guidance of the Coen brothers, watching Clooney dance to rap music while wearing an oversized dollar-sign necklace is a joy, and he plays the despicable cable-host reptile remarkably well. When he is quickly silenced by the gun-waving intruder, he stops his sleazeball routine and begins an unbelievable redemptive arc, losing the charisma in the process.

The same can be said of O'Connell, who channels the same repressed rage he did so well in the excellent Starred Up (2013), but is quickly subdued as Gates and Fenn start to ask their own questions. He is arguably the true hero of the film, if somewhat misguided, but Foster seems to lose interest in him while the rich take over and try to save the day instead. It's a contradictory message, and the decision to make the enemy one man with an expensive suit and an untrustworthy smile, rather than the masters of the universe running the world that the film should be attacking, reeks of a lack of ambition. It's a missed opportunity, and the performances are the only real positive I took away from the film. I would have been happier watching a movie focused solely on a man like Gates, and what helps him sleep at night.


Directed by: Jodie Foster
Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O'Connell, Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe, Giancarlo Esposito
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie