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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.

Money Monster (2016)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Lee Gates (George Clooney) is a hot shot financial TV personality who offers up advice on what stocks to buy and which ones to sell. His director (Julia Roberts) is on her last show when they've scored an interview with a big CEO but when he backs out they don't realize how worst the day is going to get. Soon Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) bursts into their studio and on live television he takes over the show carrying a gun and a bomb.

MONEY MONSTER comes from director Jodie Foster and I must admit that I went into it with incredibly high expectations. Whether people like it or not Clooney had done many great movies and delivered many great performances over the past decade so I thought with him and Foster together we'd get a hard-hitting drama that would take down the ugly side of Wall Street. Well, the movie was entertaining while you watched it but afterwards I couldn't help but feel extremely disappointed because when you get down to it the film was pretty shallow.

There's a great film hidden somewhere in here but it seems that they had to simple everything down so that your average viewer wouldn't get lost. I can only imagine what this could have been if someone like the late Sidney Lumet had been able to make it and the screenplay was allowed to be much more hard hitting and really go after the bad guys. This film starts off on a highly unlikely plot device (getting into the studio so easily) and by the final act it completely falls apart with its rather stupid plot twists.

With that said, the movie is still slightly entertaining to a point. Foster does a good job in her directing duties but there's no question that a new screenplay was needed. Both Clooney and Roberts work extremely well together and both give fine performances. Clooney does a good job at playing the charm but as the drama builds he also manages to sell that. O'Connell is also very good in his role of the man who finds himself in a desperate place so he reaches for a rather dumb idea.

MONEY MONSTER has its heart in the right place but it just seems like one of those movies that doesn't want to be too serious or too finger pointing and instead of any hard hitting drama and questions we're just left with a rather mindless action film with an unlikely plot. It's really too bad because with the talent involved this should have been so much better.

There are a couple of things to note right up front about Money Monster, the first film directed by Jodie Foster in quite some time and reuniting Clooney and Roberts (remember them from the Ocean's Eleven flicks? or, you know, the two they were in together? good times) - first, I think it's important that if you do decide to go see this movie, see it in a theater (I'd say a matinée price works best, maybe not quite full price). It's the kind of movie that Lynda Obst has outlined in her book 'Sleepless in Hollywood' as being as something of an endangered species: the middle budget Hollywood genre movie with some big name stars and a plot that's appealing to a mass audience (so it's not quite an "indie" movie, but it's not something that crosses 100 million with elaborate special effects).

Though these movies became a bit tiring (or more than a bit depending on who you are) by the early 00's, in the landscape where there's either comic book movies (Marvel, DC, etc) or comic book movies in look and tone as franchises (Fast & Furious, Hunger Games, etc), a story like this where a guy holds a Jim Kramer type of cable 'news' personality and his crew hostage on live TV seems almost refreshing, at least as far as being something that's only pretense is that, you know, the economy collapsed not too long ago and confidence in things like the stock market should suck (though it seemed to have rebounded not too soon after 2008), and it's made professionally.

The other thing to note here is that just because it's a highly entertaining dramatic thriller as far as the nuts-and-bolts of such a thing are put together - the actors are just right, with Roberts being the anchor for things to not get out of control as the director of the show, and even small players like Dominic West as the CEO of the company that (seemingly) screwed over Jack O'Connell's gun-and-bomb toting show hijacker, and Clooney's Clooney so that's good - it doesn't meant there aren't flaws.

You've seen this before if you've seen, I don't know, Dog Day Afternoon or John Q (the latter's lessor than this but you may get an idea, the "Just hostage-taker" scenario), and even Inside Man, which featured Foster in a supporting role. Things to do with logic like the amount of security that should/would be in an area where a major cable show is being produced, or how the whole last third unfolds (and if you've seen the trailer, and it's hard to avoid it if you've been to the movies in the past few months, it shows you this section in pieces so you anticipate it) is implausible.

But there's a lot of good drama to mine here, and buried underneath its quick and fast-paced plot mechanics it does have something to say about not just how the American people continually get duped into things like going for stocks (or at least the ones who can afford it or try to like O'Connell's working class character), but the power of celebrity. There's a wonderful little scene where Clooney's Lee Gates tries to dissuade this bomb-that's-going-to-go-off scenario by talking to the tens of millions (I should think more, depending on who has cable around the world, but I digress) and appeals to them to contribute money so that the stock can bulk up for the company that screwed over O'Connell's character. It's the kind of performance where it feels like a performance, but in a good way: it's self-knowing and Clooney plays up to it, and when the outcome of this happens (and it's not pleasant) the emphasis on this whole 'image' that Lee Gates has perpetuated comes back to bite him in the ass.

So there's a lot of little sections that work and good character actors sprinkled throughout (Esposito, Jim Warden, John Ventimiglia), and it all boosts up what is fairly conventional and yet everything is there for the drama of this type of movie. Its even funny, in a bleak, sardonic sort of way, in a few moments (and one that's kind of weak, let's say it involves a sort of cream for your area that's, oh nevermind). I wish it was a little more strong with certain story details, but it's comforting in a way even as character yell and curse and stand-offs happen and rise and fall. Put it another way, if you want a less 'cluttered' take on stock fraud than The Big Short, look here, and if you want to spend some time away and to watch something with a few good Hollywood superstars, it's good on that end.

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.