Money Monster

A note for screenwriters and directors: if your film is aiming to vent some righteous fury at the system, it helps if the vessel for doing so is compelling, charismatic, and heroic. Or at the very least, sympathetic.

Money Monster's vessel for that is regular working stiff Jack O'Connell, who, after losing his life savings, snaps and walks into the Manhattan TV studio of a Jim Cramer-esque financial pundit (George Clooney) with a gun and bomb. As the on-air hostage situation escalates into a worldwide media phenomenon, the show’s director (Julia Roberts) and production team attempt to uncover just why a company touted by the show, and in which the hostage-taker invested, sustained heavy losses.

 
So, it’s angling to be Dog Day Afternoon for the post-Great Recession, cable news era. But, sadly, O’Connell’s no Al Pacino. His desperate gunman ultimately says very little, and comes off as totally out of his depth. He doesn’t even manage a satisfying moment of putting Clooney in his place, or getting the audience to dislike him. And Clooney is really trying to be dislikable, playing to the hilt a caricature cocktail of Wall Street bro, showbiz prima donna, and gasbag pundit. But he acts circles around O’Connell when the two share the screen.

The writing is just as weak, unsubtle and eye roll-inducing even by movie standards of disbelief. When the action leaves the studio to the streets below, the implication is, of course, that this is a rare and unfamiliar event for Clooney’s rich loudmouth, walking amongst the regular people. Yet as obvious as that is, the film ultimately never says a thing about real financial crises of late. The impetus for the story's conflict is revealed as nothing more than generic Hollywood white collar bastardry.

The whole thing is also tonally askew. Moments of moralizing or that are supposed to be heartwarming directly follow moments of tragedy or tension, or at least are supposed to have tension. Jokes are thrown in at the most inappropriate times (a subplot involving a penile enhancer defuses the tension before it’s even really built). Other parts are funny, but seem like they weren’t intended to be funny.

At the very least, Clooney and Roberts are still pros, navigating the jarring shifts in tone and doing what they can in each scene. If nothing else, they give the whole thing a brisk momentum that keeps it from stalling into a total mess. Thanks to them, as well as said humor and overall technical competence, Money Monster could hold some entertainment value as a fun bit of unintended cheese. But as the important, timely message thriller it aspires to be, it’s not even close.