Movie Review: "Money Monster"

My stockbroker made me a millionaire.  I used to be a multi-millionaire.
 - Anonymous

"Money Monster": B.  It's quite possible you have seen Jim Cramer, the real life host of CNBC's Mad Money.  Cramer's schtick of rolled up sleeves, loosened tie, almost out-of-control fast talking, and frequent gesticulations as he strides across the show's set, belies his smarts.  He used to be a hedge fund manager after starting his finance career as a stockbroker with Goldman Sachs.  This Harvard man knows his stuff, but he does not fit the prototype of a buttoned down conservative Wall Street numbers cruncher.  In Money Monster, George Clooney's character, Lee Gates, is cut out of the same mold as Cramer.  As part of his financial advice show there are costumed dances, horns, buzzers, whistles, big red desk top buttons, music, funny videos and general foolishness, all to accompany Gates' can't miss tips.  The name of his cable program is the title of the film.

Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) is Money Monster's veteran but under appreciated director.  Her job is to reign Gates in, a tough task in any context but especially in the realm of live television.  Gates never sticks to the script, is cracking jokes with the crew seconds before air time, and seems, in a laid back way, more concerned about which restaurant to patronize afterwards than he is about what the market is doing or how he's going to advise his viewers.  Fenn is used to Gates' antics.  She even has a code word, "Sacagawea," which, when she whispers that from her headset in the booth into Gates' earpiece, is a signal to cease and desist whatever he's doing or saying and move on to something else.

Once we get a taste of how Gates operates, director Jodie Foster decides to have bad guy Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) make an early -- maybe too early -- appearance.  You might say he comes in with a bang.  Budwell has snuck into the building posing as a delivery man, and while the cameras are rolling, he brandishes a large caliber handgun, blasts a shot or two into the ceiling, and threatens to blow away Gates in front of thousands of viewers.  His beef?  Several weeks beforehand Gates had promoted a rosy future for a company called Ibus.  It was that day's Pick Of The Decade, not to be confused with yesterday's or today's.  Budwell, following Gates' confident recommendation, sunk his entire fortune, a $60,000 inheritance from his mother, into Ibus.  Now, Ibus stock has tanked and its shareholders are left holding the bag.  The word on the street is that a computer glitch was the culprit for Ibus capital shrinking $800 million in a matter of minutes, but Budwell is holding Gates responsible.  Not only that, he makes Gates strap on a bomb-laden vest which Budwell can detonate by releasing his grip from a remote trigger.  At Budwell's insistence, the cameras keep rolling, and people around the world are watching.

 

A large portion of the movie's second act is spent trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of Ibus CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West).  He has some explaining to do.  Gates had lined him up for a video interview to explain the nosedive of Ibus stock, but not even his direct reports know where he is, only that he's in his private plane.  They say he is notorious for cutting off all means of communication, including his cell phone, while he's flying.  One of those direct reports, company spokesperson Diane Lester (the glamorous model/actress Caitriona Balfe), stands ready at an offsite location to pinch hit for Camby on Money Monster.  Gates grills her with some tough questions, but she claims to have no inside information.

 

Although off to a very good start, the story bogs down as both the Money Monster staff, under the calm guiding hand of Fenn, and Ibus' Lester try to crack the mystery of how the Wall Street giant could suffer such an extraordinary setback.  In the course of their separate investigations, we are introduced to the algorithm writer in Seoul used by Ibus, computer hackers in Iceland, and Avery Goodloe (Dennis Boutsikaris), the Ibus CFO who attempts to fire Lester until she reminds him that her boss is Camby, not him.  While all this is going on, the NYPD SWAT team has entered the building, trying to figure out how to take out Budwell without reducing Gates to vapor.

 

Clooney gets to show range here beyond his usual Mr. Cool persona.  If Clooney was a reality TV personality instead of actor, I imagine he'd be a lot like Gates, pre-Budwell intrusion.  Roberts is on-screen a lot but has limited duties.  Almost all her lines are delivered into a headset.

 

Hands down, the best part of the story occurs when the police locate Budwell's pregnant wife, Molly (Emily Meade).  They hook her up with a phone connection, figuring she can talk the father of her unborn child off the ledge of despair.  Things don't exactly go as planned, due to her outrage at the thought of him blowing all their money.  "You spent all that energy to make a bomb when you don't even know how to use a screwdriver?"

 

As I was leaving the theater I resolved not to let the film's last twenty minutes, which are downright silly, cause me to overlook the fact that I was entertained by the story.  Okay, I'm willing to give it a strong B, but it was heading higher before losing its sharpness.