Money Monster, 2016
Directed by Jodie Foster
Starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Caitriona Balfe and Dominic West
SYNOPSIS:
The presenter and producer of a flamboyant financial news TV show finds themselves in a hostage situation when a young, working class investor decides to take revenge for the tumbling share price of a major corporation.
Wall Street’s crooked ways and the shallowness of the 24-hour news cycle are the targets of Jodie Foster’s taut, engaging – and somewhat ridiculous – dramatic thriller.
In Money Monster, George Clooney takes on the role of a loudmouth TV personality named Lee Gates, who presents a CNBC/The Daily Show-style financial news programme complete with hip hop dancing, props and punchy graphics. His harassed but steely producer, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), just about manages to keep him on script, while the gallery and floor crews barely blink at Lee’s now familiar antics. All that changes suddenly when a young man (Jack O’Connell) walks on set brandishing a gun and a vest fitted with explosives and demands the show stay on air. The intruder reveals himself as Kyle, a blue-collar worker with an axe to grind – he wiped out his savings to purchase $60,000 of shares in a company that Lee rated a “triple-buy”. However, despite the initial rally, the stock soon collapsed and lost investors $800 million. The company blamed an algorithm glitch, an increasingly common occurrence with high-frequency trading, but Kyle says he isn’t convinced and wants concrete answers.
What ensues is a tense hostage situation in real-time with Lee and Patty trying to cool Kyle’s trigger finger, while simultaneously uncovering a major trading scandal. Away from the studio, the company’s chief publicist (Caitriona Balfe) embarks on her own version of damage control and starts an investigation into the activities of the mysteriously absent CEO (Dominic West).
Money Monster is Jodie Foster’s fourth directorial feature and the Oscar-winner confidently demonstrates her skills behind the camera. She elicits solid performances from her cast, keeps the fast pace going and creates a film that is visually slick and interesting to watch. It’s also obvious where she drew inspiration from – there are hints of Network, Speed, John Q, Margin Call and Inside Man (the latter of which she starred in).
Although George Clooney has displayed various degrees of smarm, arrogance and brazen bullying on screen in the past – and expertly so – it’s still amusing to see him portray today’s broadcast shock-jock nonsense. His silver fox financial whiz is both court jester and pundit who is forced into a moral awakening. Julia Roberts and Jack O’Connell are absolutely fine, but neither really stretches beyond their character’s broad brush personalities of stoic professional and frothing-at-the-mouth maniac, respectively. Meanwhile Caitriona Balfe, best known for TV’s Outlander, is good in her supporting part as a senior female executive going rogue as her conscience strikes.
Where Money Monster fails is in providing a wounding critique of the contemporary industry-media complex. The script touches upon underhanded deals, income disparity in 21st century America, crusading hackers and the nature of social media reactions, but it’s ultimately a straight up hostage action flick. And that’s not a problem, after all the film is a commercial, non-franchise summer release which aims to make audiences think but not too deeply.
(Full disclosure, this writer works as a reporter/producer on various business news TV programmes, and it’s almost impossible to continue broadcasting seamlessly from studio to the street, with inserts from correspondents in the field, without prior satellite bookings, fully prepped LiveU units, signal tests and spare batteries!)
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Sara Hemrajani
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