Money Monster

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Lee Gates (George Clooney) is the brash, arrogant presenter of financial show the Money Monster, which offers advice on how best to invest your savings. Aided by his forthright producer Patty (Julia Roberts), he starts the day with a typically extroverted show-until an uninvited intruder named Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) hijacks the show, and demands Gates be held to account for some bad advice he offered that resulted in Budwell losing all his money. As the hostage situation intensifies, the two men find the cause of both their problems may be events happening much further down the chain.

Jodie Foster steps back behind the camera for this timely tale, involving corporate greed and the fallout. Setting the themes of monetary hardship and retribution against the template of a standard real time thriller, of the type they used to make really well in the '90s, Money Monster has a fairly genuine air of suspense about it, and plays out in a manner you may not expect it to, although it's still fairly flawed as a film , and is certainly not as much in this vein as it could be.

It's all going rather swimmingly, playing out in a fairly standard, connect the dots manner from one hostage situation cliché to another, almost as if it's coming from the rule book for such films, but nonetheless keeping you on the seat edge wondering how it's going to play out. Then as there seems to be some resolution, it all goes pear shaped and descends into an overblown and fairly nonsensical final showdown with CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) and his cohort Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) that loses it some credibility.

Performances wise, as the leading man, Clooney assumes the older statesman role, looking older and greyer than his heartthrob days, but gaining a little more conviction as a result. Meanwhile, as the protagonist, O'Connell manages a fairly good Queens accent and is a pleasing coy to Clooney. With a support cast of the likes of Roberts, West and Lester, you certainly have star power, and about the same script power too, until the end. ***

If someone were to enter your home and steal from you, naturally, you'd be angry. You'd want to see that person caught and to pay for the crime and, if possible, to get your money back. When someone commits financial crimes, it's a little harder to accomplish all that, but the first step after the crime (or unethical behavior) comes to light is to assign blame. It also happens to be cathartic. As cathartic as movies can be, they've been a useful tool over the years for venting our collective rage over such misuse of our money and/or showing us how these things happen. Some of the better and/or more notable examples include "Trading Places" (1983), "Wall Street" (1987), "Barbarians at the Gate" (1993), "Boiler Room" (2000), "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (2005), "Capitalism: A Love Story" (2009), "Margin Call" (2011), "Arbitrage" (2012), "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013) and, in 2015 alone, "99 Homes" and the Best Picture Oscar nominee "The Big Short". 2016 brings us "Money Monster" (R, 1:38), starring Oscar winners George Clooney and Julia Roberts and directed by 2-time winner Jodie Foster.

Clooney is Lee Gates, the cocky and flamboyant host of a financially-themed NYC-based TV show called "Money Monster". It's high finance meets entertainment (similar to CNBC's "Mad Money", hosted by Jim Cramer) and it features Lee and his oversized personality both advising and amusing investors. Lee's long-time producer, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), keeps things stock-ticking along but is suddenly forced to become a hostage negotiator, crisis manager and investigative journalist when a man with a gun and a bomb takes over the studio (during a live broadcast!) and takes Lee hostage. Viewers first think that this is just another one of Lee's on-air stunts, but it's all too real (even though it's just a movie, of course).

The desperate, well-armed man is Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell, from Angelina Jolie's 2014 WWII epic "Unbroken"), an ordinary working man who lost his nest egg of $60,000 after investing in a stock that Lee recommended on the air, with his usual showmanship and a little hyperbole. The day after the company loses $800,000,000, Kyle holds his gun to Lee's head and demands answers. The company's public relations COO, Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) does a live interview with Lee, but simply spouts corporate rhetoric about a mysterious computer glitch, while CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) is MIA.

As Lee wears an explosive vest which Kyle threatens to detonate, Lee and Patty use their professional talents to satisfy Kyle's demands that he be able to air his grievances publicly and try to diffuse the situation by getting him some real answers. Outside the studio, Patty has help from staffers Ron and Bree (Christopher Denham and Condola Rashad) and the police, under Captain Powell (Giancarlo Esposito from TV's "Breaking Bad" and "Revolution"), strategize. While Ron is (literally) running around town, Bree keeps an eye on the police. The NYPD bring in Kyle's girlfriend (Emily Meade) to try to talk her boyfriend down, which doesn't exactly go well, and then they hatch a risky plan, to which Lee would certainly object, if he knew about it. Diane does her level best to get Lee and Kyle the answers they seek, but is stymied by CFO Avery Goodloe (Dennis Boutsikaris) and with their mutual boss traveling and being incommunicado. The characters (and Movie Fans) eventually get some answers, but only after scenes in South Korea, Iceland and South Africa and back in the Big Apple after Camby's plane finally lands.

"Money Monster" is a taut and entertaining thriller. Within the film's economical running time, Foster keeps things moving and injects several lighter moments, while also managing excellent character development, which her perfectly-cast and very talented actors sell with aplomb. The script, which was developed by three different writers over the course of more than three years, features dialog that feels true, but packs an unrealistic amount of investigative success into a very narrow time frame. All this results in an indictment of some financial practices which doesn't simply trash capitalism, and a message movie which never forgets that is must entertain in order to deliver its timely message effectively. "B+"

Considering this is a pretty intense movie about a desperate guy threatening to shoot and blow up people, this movie had moments of unexpected humour. The whole cinema was laughing at various points. Which was very cleverly done by director, Jodie Foster. The movie is well scripted and well acted. Clooney and Roberts clearly enjoy working together (just don't remind me of Ocean's 12). I agree with the other reviewer who said the movie should have just stopped with the return to the foosball table, and not gone for the schmaltzy hospital scene. Not the greatest movie of the year and not Oscar-worthy, but well worth the price of the movie ticket. Can't understand why it's only got a rating of 6.8 on IMDb.

Money Monster features George Clooney as one those loud obnoxious Finance TV hosts. It also features Julia Roberts as the shows director. However, when an angry investor played by Jack O'Connell, breaks into the studio and holds George Clooney hostage till he gets some answers, George Clooney has to do anything he can to stay alive.

I originally went into this movie with relatively low expectations. I thought the plot was going to be predictable and boring, but overall, I found it to be very entertaining.

The Good:

The performances. You can always expect a good performance from George Clooney And you can honestly say the same thing about Julia Roberts. That being said this is the 3rd movie that features Jack O'Connell in a leading role and let me just say that he is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. At this point, I think he can do no wrong.

The next thing I liked were the clichés in the movie. This movie reminded me a lot of John Q in that it is a normal person standing up for something he knows is right, even though the means might not have been the best. That being said, even though many of the hostage clichés that you get in movies like John Q, the Negotiator, and The Inside Man, are still here… the result of the clichés took a completely different turn. So although I thought they were going to be cliché, they actually turned out to be completely unique.

Money Monster was also surprisingly funny. Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't call it a comedy by any stretch of the imagination because there were moments that were roll-you-eyes obnoxious, most of which came from the TV shows production, but there were definitely moments where I found myself laughing out loud.

The Ehh:

As I said already I liked how the movie would start a plot point with a cliché and then completely turn it on it's head. I only wish the same thing could be said about the ending. I figured out roughly how the movie was going to end by about 5 minutes into the movie. It was pretty obvious where they were going, but it was still refreshing how they ended up getting there.

The Bad:

The dang TV show that George Clooney's character hosted. I can't stand shows like Mad Money, and Money Monster is an extreme version of that. Luckily the main story line started pretty quickly so I didn't have to see too much of it.

Recommendation:

Even though Money Monster is your typical hostage thriller with a predictable ending, the great acting and surprising twists keep you guessing and at the edge of your seat. For those reasons I recommend that this movie should be seen in theaters. Visit Unpopped Review for more movie review from a movie lover, not a movie critic.

In Money Monster, George Clooney plays a TV presenter who is taken hostage live on camera by a desperate young man played by the brilliant Jack O'Connell. I really enjoyed this film; finding it thrilling and well paced throughout. However, it falls short of being completely satisfying.

Six months ago, The Big Short - a far superior film - attempted to tackle the full complexity of the 2008 financial crisis and its causes and did so in a way that was both enlightening and entertaining. Money Monster is more like Phone Booth. In this movie the credit crunch is merely the setting for a tense thrill ride; which is OK except it feels like it's aiming to be more substantial.

I've heard Jodie Foster, the director, say that the seventies will always be her favourite era because movies took such risks back then. Her key influences here are clearly Network and Dog Day Afternoon. Perhaps this is the problem. It feels like a 1970s style take on a 21st Century issue. Thanks in part to other recent movies we already have a more sophisticated appreciation of the reality of the financial sector.

But I still really enjoyed Money Monster. George Clooney strikes the right balance as the likable scoundrel who just needs a gun to the head in order to realise how far down the wrong path he has travelled. And Jack O'Connell is probably my favourite actor of this decade. Just as he did in Starred Up or Eden Lake, this young man threatens to break though the screen and grab hold of you. Electrifying.

In the end I see this film as a fable and a romp. It is lots of fun. The ending just seemed a bit Hollywood. If you want to see a film that explores the impact that the financial crisis had on regular people I highly recommend the underrated 99 Homes.