Movie Reviews

Money Monster
submitted by
Thomas
 on
Thursday, November 10, 2016 - 14:17
7.0
Directed by: 

Following the Ocean trilogy, Money Monster sees George Clooney teaming up once again with Julia Roberts. Clooney stars as Lee Gates, the exuberant host of an in-your-face financial TV show that comes complete with backup dancers. After just having started a new live episode, they have an unexpected walk-in in the form of Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), who takes Lee hostage with a gun and a bomb and threatens to splatter his brains all over the teleprompter if he doesn’t get the chance to speak his mind.

 

Turns out Kyle invested all his savings following Lee’s sure-fire tip to buy IBIS stock and lost all his money after the stock mysteriously crashed. He’s not just there for his own 60,000 bucks though. He’s there to represent every little guy who’s been screwed out of his hard-earned money by the big boys in their shiny suits. In total, IBIS lost a mind-blowing 800 million and then simply blamed it on a glitch in their software. Oops!

 

The rest of the movie unfolds in real-time as Lee, with his trusty producer Patty Penn (an underused Julia Roberts) in his earpiece, tries to stay alive while a SWAT team moves into position. But then they find out that there is a lot more going on than a mysterious glitch. And that IBIS CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) is hiding something. Dum dum dum.

 

Money Monster has more than a few things in common with movies like John Q and Dog Day Afternoon. And while it never gets quite as tense as Foster probably wanted it to, there is still plenty to enjoy as it moves along at a brisk pace, clocking in at just under 100 minutes.