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MONEY MONSTER (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

MONEY MONSTER (2016) movie

Genre | Drama

Classification | M

Running time | 98 minutes

Released | 2 June 2016

cast

George Clooney ...  Lee Gates
Julia Roberts ...  Patty Fenn
Jack O'Connell ...  Kyle Budwell
Dominic West ...  Walt Camby

director

Jodie Foster

writer

Jamie Linden ... (screenplay) and
Alan DiFiore ... (screenplay) &
Jim Kouf ... (screenplay)

Alan DiFiore ... (story) &
Jim Kouf ... (story)

cinematographer

Matthew Libatique

music

Dominic Lewis

film editor

Matt Chesse

box office result

Worldwide $93,282,604

Australia $5,298,100

North America $41,012,075

the best dialogue

Patty Fenn: [final line] So what the hell kind of show are we going to do next week?

Lee Gates: The name is Lee Gates, the show is Money Monster. Without risk, there is no reward. Should I sell? Should I a loan? GET SOME BALLS!

Won Joon: They're only calling it a glitch because nobody understands how the algo works. And if nobody can understand the math, then nobody has to explain the money.

things to spend money on ...

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MONEY MONSTER (2016) IMAGES

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MONEY MONSTER (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

In the real-time, high stakes thriller Money Monster, George Clooney and Julia Roberts star as financial TV host Lee Gates and his producer Patty, who are put in an extreme situation when an irate investor who has lost everything (Jack O'Connell) forcefully takes over their studio. During a tense standoff broadcast to millions on live TV, Lee and Patty must work furiously against the clock to unravel the mystery behind a conspiracy at the heart of today's fast-paced, high-tech global markets.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 31 May 2016
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

Jodie Foster’s new film, Money Monster, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, is a broad-brush tale about the ills of unfettered Capitalism. The movie engages in an obvious attack on the manner in which big money flushes through a hard-to-track system in the blink of a millisecond. Unfortunately, the film’s ‘Occupy Wall Street’ leaning politics can’t sustain a script that falters in delivering a finale that pays off the well constructed First and Second Acts or does justice to the story’s thematic intent. Despite this lack of climactic punch, both Clooney and Roberts do enough for their Director to make sure the 98 minute running time is, at least, entertaining, if lacking the dramatic depth or emotion the film’s finale was clearly searching for.

Clooney plays Lee Gates, a self-absorbed New York television finance show host, who’s as much about showmanship as he is about dispensing sound investment advice. Just moments into the latest episode of Money Monster, the show’s Director, Patty Fenn, played by Julia Roberts, notices someone who appears to be a delivery guy who has inadvertently wandered onto the soundstage. Matters take a turn for the deadly as the “delivery guy” turns out to be a disgruntled investor who wants to make a very serious point; hijacking the studio with a handgun and a homemade jacket bomb. As events unfold, the identity of the young man is revealed as Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), an ordinary guy who has lost $60,000 in one of Gates’s stock recommendations called Ibis; a company that has just “lost” $800 million in a computer glitch.

While entertaining throughout, Money Monster really struggles to find a balance between sympathetic characters and a strong plot. In the end, plot wins out, as a broader game of corporate cat-and-mouse is played out behind the scenes. In the foreground, Clooney’s Gates struggles to keep Budwell from lifting his thumb off the bomb-trigger that has a remote sensor to the jacket of explosives the young man has made the TV host put on. Clooney’s character doesn’t help his own cause, as he continually antagonises Budwell with his impotent comparisons between the their respective lives. The bomb becomes more integral as the story progresses and Gates uses it as leverage to get Budwell what he wants, but it also leads to one of the biggest problems of the film’s finale. Money Monster aspires for something that is kind of like a Dog Day Afternoon feel in the Third Act but it comes off as unconvincing, not allowing Budwell the chance to become an “Everyman Hero” with his act of defiance against Corporate America.

Money Monster’s best performance comes from Julia Roberts, who brings back memories of Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig from the 1987 film Broadcast News. Roberts helps Clooney keep the story focussed in the first two-thirds of the film and it’s no coincidence that the film’s energy drops as a result of her reduced role in the latter parts of the story. Jack O’Connell is solid as Budwell, but he lacks the manic intensity that might be expected of a man whose last resort is to grab headlines by hijacking a TV show with a bomb. Money Monster’s most memorable character is brought to life by Emily Meade, who plays Budwell’s pregnant girlfriend Molly. Her rant at Kyle, via videolink, highlights just how stupid he is and breaks his spirit on live TV with a torrent of verbal abuse that reinforces the film’s central idea that money can’t buy happiness.