"Money Monster" Review

I'm going to break form and put the trailer up top. Do me a favor and watch this trailer for Money Monster, then read the rest of the review.

Welcome back. Intense, huh? What a pulse-pounder! Don't be fooled. Money Monster is a black comedy in thriller's clothing, tugging on emotion rather than logic to address America's post-Recession frustrations. There's a couple dick jokes thrown in there, too.

George Clooney is Lee Gates, the pompous rock star host of "Money Monster," a financial show as bombastic and ludicrous as he is. Julia Roberts plays the show's director, Patty Fehn, whose idea of a Friday night is pajamas, TV, and Chinese takeout, something that I'm not sure Lee finds adorable, pathetic, or both.

During a live taping, a lone gunman (Jack O'Connell) bursts in and puts a barrel up to Lee's head. Influenced by Lee's show, the gunman had placed all his money in stocks for Ibis Clear Capital, a company Lee lauded as a messiah for Wall Street. Unfortunately, the company suddenly lost $800 million from a computer glitch, wiping out the gunman's stock. 

Believing there's more to the story, the gunman demands Lee give him some answers, and as the story breaks globally, everyone hunts for answers, slowly uncovering the complicated truth.

Money Monster draws comparisons to last year's The Big Short. Both focus on Recession fears and address the desire for accountability in the economy. In The Big Short, the problem was greed. In Money Monster, the problem is still greed, but it adds a layer of technology: the movement away from gold bricks to bitcoins. 

The problem's two-pronged. The first is an old fear - whether money changes from gold to dollars or dollars to data, the shift brings apprehensions about the value of money and whether a new format will devalue the old. The second involves a psychological tic. When something becomes intangible or virtual, people tend to treat it with less severity; it doesn't feel as real. In our brains, there's a huge difference between reading "$100" on our bank account and holding good ol' Benjamin's face in our hands. The movie asserts that as we become more and more technologically dependent, money starts looking more and more like a series of numbers, and less like a tool we use to live. 

When Lee sees $800 million disappear in the blink of an eye, he tells his viewers that the event is isolated, only a minor setback for the company. He doesn't think of the people who earned that money, their frustrations and anger. The gunman does. Of course there's a personal stake in it; he's told at one point that his outrage is linked to his loss. If he was winning, if nothing changed, would he care? Probably not.

However, I don't think Money Monster, while heavy-handed, is naive. It understands the risks involved in entering the stock market. And while I'd like a movie about the economy that doesn't automatically take a sledgehammer to corporate America and a feather to bad or ignorant investors, I don't think the movie wants to focus on the money, but rather on people.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is one of Frank Capra's most lauded films (an Oscar winner and number 26 on AFI's Top 100 Movies list) and one of my favorites. Just like Money Monster, the film explores how a major system can be corrupted, featuring the everyman's plight to break free of said corruption. Capra is a director whose characters are inherently more emotional than logical (only Jefferson Smith would sincerely believe that he could get a plan for a national boys' camp written, passed through committee, and ratified in the Senate in one night). However, in that emotion lies Capra's strength: he breaks down stories to their most essential, human elements. Capra's movies are about people, about the strength and courage inherent in us, and the need for more of these in the world.

Now, I'm not calling Money Monster a future number 27, but I think Foster has tapped into some of Capra's magic. O'Connell has a way with asking Clooney questions that breaks the artifice of media, the complications of economics, and gets to a need for accountability. At the heart of corporations and finance are people, looking to make a living and get back home to their kids, so when things go wrong, the response should be genuine, not automatic. It's what makes us human.

The movie's not a seminar: Foster and editor Matt Chesse have extraordinary timing, and make for some fantastic laugh-out-loud moments that break tension and parody other hostage thrillers. Clooney and Roberts are veterans, playing their strengths to the best of the story. It's not as elegant or clever as The Big Short, but if you're looking for an intense drama with a great sense of humor and an emotional backbone, it's worth a watch.

Thank you all for reading; I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.