MONEY MONSTER
***
Director: Jodie Foster
Screenwriters: Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf
Principal cast:
George Clooney
Julia Roberts
Jack O’Connell
Dominic West
Catriona Balfe
Giancarlo Esposito
Country: USA
Classification: M
Runtime: 98 mins.
Australian release date: 2 June 2016
In Jodie Foster’s, Money Monster, George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the silver-haired host of a New York-based TV program that provides financial information about the stock market and the companies worth investing in. This is delivered live in a highly flamboyant visual style, such as when Gates brings on dancing girls and dons a top hat to deliver his hot tips. In the background, his ever-present producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), vainly endeavours to keep her charge within the boundaries of the script. Gates presents as a likeable but egotistical type, typical of many a TV host, who gives little thought to his viewers until the day when, during one of his routine broadcasts, a delivery man enters the studio and pulls out a gun. It turns out that he’s a blue-collar worker Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), who’s invested his life savings in a company given a ‘safe-as-banks’ recommendation by Gates, but which has collapsed, losing millions of dollars of its shareholders’ money.
The ensuing drama unravels as the cameras roll and Fenn whispers instructions into Gates’s earpiece, while endeavouring to get to the bottom of the financial scandal and locate the failed company’s missing CEO, Walt Camby (Dominic West). The situation becomes overwhelmingly claustrophobic within the enclosed studio set. However, it immediately dissipates when the action moves outside and, regardless of the solid performances portrayed by all the actors, the film loses any credibility and becomes just plain silly.
Money Monster is Jodie Foster’s fourth directorial role for the cinema and she has once again shown her mettle, but it’s a shame she didn’t deliver a message about the caprices of the financial markets and the risks of trying to make one’s fortune on the basis of speculation. It would’ve made for a much more plausible film… and a much more engaging one.
Screenwriters: Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf
Principal cast:
George Clooney
Julia Roberts
Jack O’Connell
Dominic West
Catriona Balfe
Giancarlo Esposito
Country: USA
Classification: M
Runtime: 98 mins.
Australian release date: 2 June 2016
In Jodie Foster’s, Money Monster, George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the silver-haired host of a New York-based TV program that provides financial information about the stock market and the companies worth investing in. This is delivered live in a highly flamboyant visual style, such as when Gates brings on dancing girls and dons a top hat to deliver his hot tips. In the background, his ever-present producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), vainly endeavours to keep her charge within the boundaries of the script. Gates presents as a likeable but egotistical type, typical of many a TV host, who gives little thought to his viewers until the day when, during one of his routine broadcasts, a delivery man enters the studio and pulls out a gun. It turns out that he’s a blue-collar worker Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), who’s invested his life savings in a company given a ‘safe-as-banks’ recommendation by Gates, but which has collapsed, losing millions of dollars of its shareholders’ money.
The ensuing drama unravels as the cameras roll and Fenn whispers instructions into Gates’s earpiece, while endeavouring to get to the bottom of the financial scandal and locate the failed company’s missing CEO, Walt Camby (Dominic West). The situation becomes overwhelmingly claustrophobic within the enclosed studio set. However, it immediately dissipates when the action moves outside and, regardless of the solid performances portrayed by all the actors, the film loses any credibility and becomes just plain silly.
Money Monster is Jodie Foster’s fourth directorial role for the cinema and she has once again shown her mettle, but it’s a shame she didn’t deliver a message about the caprices of the financial markets and the risks of trying to make one’s fortune on the basis of speculation. It would’ve made for a much more plausible film… and a much more engaging one.