Money Monster
starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Dominic West and Caitriona Balfe
screenplay by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf
directed by Jodie Foster
Rating: ♦♦♦◊◊
George Clooney stars as Lee Gates, a TV personality who advises his audience on commerce and Wall Street, and who is forcefully interrogated by Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell), a grief-stricken bankrupt viewer who lost his money after a previous tip. Kyle manages to access the studio during a live broadcast armed with a handgun and a bomb - or what he says is a bomb - that he forces Lee to wear. All this is on live TV, so you know that in America it’s automatic ratings dynamite.
Julia Roberts plays Lee’s producer, Patty Fenn. To keep him alive she keeps broadcasting and directs the show as live news, and keeps Kyle talking as she begins to explore the financial collapse that led to his bankruptcy and anger. An up and coming company that Lee recommended on the air collapsed, catalyzing Lee’s situation. But the company’s collapse doesn’t stand up well to close scrutiny and it quickly becomes clear that there’s something wrong. There’s bribery and fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy. Potentially, there’s a Pulitzer Prize for good investigative reporting. There’s a financial crime to solve and expose.
I didn’t like Money Monster so much because the whole culture of money thing turns me off. I always remember Gordon Gecko (1987), “Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” It was a little dull, actually.