FlipBoard
TriStar
The main question Money Monster raises is whether it’s just a bad movie or bad for society. That it’s a bad movie isn’t really in question, and honestly, you probably knew that from the trailer. It’s all furrowed brows and panicked gasps, looking so hard boiled that it’s flavorless and mushy, like bad Irish food.
George Clooney stars as “Lee Gates,” leading infotainment pundit for “FNN,” and a clear stand-in for CNBC’s Jim Cramer. He opens his shows dancing obnoxiously to hip-hop, and when he recommends a down stock, he puts on a boxer’s robe and gloves (it’s going to “fight back,” you see). He manages to be simultaneously less believable than his real-life counterpart and not substantively more ridiculous. Though he is more obnoxious, which is a feat, considering the real Jim Cramer hurts my ears on mute. Gates is also a slick, rich, workaholic womanizer with an estranged daughter, looking for that proverbial shot at redemption. Julia Roberts plays his long-suffering producer who proverbially knows him better than he knows himself, proverbially. Will they f*ck? (Tune in next week, on The Newsroom!)
When a junior producer comes to Gates with a hot stock tip on a pharma company (everything is abbrev’d in Money Monster, from quants to algos) that’s developing an erectile cream, Gates makes him test it on himself, in the bathroom. It works so well he that he gets a big boner, and later uses it on a lady. A lot of Money Monster is “clever” in a similarly unclever way, like an Eastern Bloc knock-off Christopher Buckley.
Torn-from-the-headlines meets torn-from-a-Robert-McKee-seminar when Gates starts recommending stock in IBIS, who, we’re told, specialize in “high-frequency trading.” If you’ve read Flash Boys, you know that this is a method of trading that involves creating computer programs that buy and sell stocks many times per second. Money Monster is sort of like a Flash Boys adaptation Oliver Stone directed without reading the book first, a clumsy attempt at applying Baby Boomer satire to 21st Century problems. Is there a slick montage of computer code flying at the screen? Maybe a long zoom of some abstract grids to represent the internet? You bet there is! Everything is connected… and your kids could be doing it!
Pretty soon disgruntled delivery driver Kyle Budwell — who I’d like to think was named “Tyler Budweiser, American Millennial” in the rough draft — shows up to hijack the program and get some answers, dammit! This Budwell character is a complete mess. Like all of Money Monster‘s blue collar characters, we know he’s blue collar right away from his Joanie Pepperoni, eh oh, I’m just bustin’ bawls ova heah accent. Uncharacteristically, this I’m walkin’ heah knockaround guy is angry on account of he lost $60,000 on IBIS stock.
Maddone, I just lost my friggin bawls on dis stock cuzza dis mamaluke. Now I can barely affoad gabba gool for my goomah!
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I know you did the “Character shaves head” retirement piece but is it time for a hoodie one as well? Every blue-collar character under 40 must where a hoodie. You know how I know that guy’s from the wrong side of the tracks? Dirty fucking hoodie, bro.
That or tech wiz (see the otherwise super fantastic Mr Robot).
It seems like this movie seems extra sucky in light of “The Big Short” doing a story about the financial industry and making it relevant, interesting without being simplistic, and both funny and infuriating.
If you had seen this, say, three years ago, do you think it would have stood out as being so bad?
I don’t think it’s as terrible at being a silly movie as it is at being satire. In light of Big Short, I might actually give it more of a benefit of the doubt because it doesn’t necessarily *need* to be a strong satire. If the ending had been just a little different I might’ve had to give it credit for being silly fun.
Does Kanye’s “Monster” play over the end credits? The reason for this whole movie seems like the writer(s) got high, listened to that song, and happened to catch Jim Cramer on TV at the same time.
From what I understand, there is a rap song that summarizes the plot playing over the end credits.
Great review, thanks Vince. I had no intention of seeing this movie either way, but for reals…bang up job, man.
I worry that after ’71 and Starred Up, Jack O’Connell will make some poor decisions and mess up his transition to American cinema, and in the process rob us of a talented Sam Worthington.
Who knew that a movie starring Julia Roberts would turn out to be terrible? I don’t think she’s been in a movie that I’ve enjoyed since Ocean’s Eleven.
Not long after Ocean’s E11ven there was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but I think that everytime Julia Roberts had a scene in that George Clooney made Sam Rockwell dance in front of her, to block her from our view.
Hating on irish food huh vince. I guess its no macaroni and gravy.
Hey, I specifically said *bad* Irish food. I got no beef with rich stews.
@Vince Mancini, simmer down with those puns!
I put little stock in your stew takes.
Mmm I guess you could say this is a pretty corny beef
Jodie Foster has gone completely insane. It’s like she watched “Mad City” and thought “YES AMERICA NEEDS MORE OF THIS.”
Haha Mad City, that’s a throwback!
Oh god I would watch a movie written by fake Ghostface in a heartbeat.
Don’t give Hollywood ideas! You might get a movie by Action Bronson.
By the end, we find out the money humans were the real money monsters.
You gotta tell them! Soylent Money is people!
Great review! I had no plans to see this, and this review confirms my suspicion.
The preview for this reminded me of Newsroom. I love how Hollywood tends to think they’re making a political point through the lens of hindsight.
I cry during sex. With a rebel yell, I cry more, more, more.
But does screwing the PR lady help to dissolve the effect of the erectile cream? Or does George Clooney walk around with a giant boner the whole movie? These are the difficult questions We the People shouldn’t be afraid to ask.