Story by Alan Di Fiore & Jim Kouf
Screenplay Written by Jamie Linden and Alan Di Fiore & Jim Kouf
Directed by Jodie Foster
*1/2 (one and a half stars)
RATED R
During my college years, I often frequented a small campus four screen multiplex theater called University Square 4, now long defunct and replaced by an upscale high rise apartment building for student housing plus large grocery store, underground parking, offices and even the home base of the campus radio station WSUM. Yet, in my time on campus, I visited that movie theater as often as I was able to nearly anything and everything that arrived on those first run screens.
It was the theater where I first saw highly controversial features like Oliver Stone's "Born On The Fourth Of July" (1989), Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" (1991), Ridley Scott's "Thelma And Louise" (1991), Philip Kaufman's NC-17 rated "Henry & June" (1990), I even crossed a picket line to see Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1989) and it was also the home of the campus midnight movies, where I engaged myself in repeated viewings of Alan Parker's "Pink Floyd The Wall" (1982).
Even so, this theater was not an arthouse by any means as other now long defunct theaters around campus and the downtown area of Madison handled those sorts of features more frequently. University Square 4 was the home of the mass marketed commercial studio feature--most of them released through Universal Studios--featuring all manner of comedies, dramas and thrillers and believe me, I saw them all, regardless of quality or pedigree. The time period of the late 1980's/early 1990's was run rampant with mid-range quality, mildly diverting films that all seemed to run no longer than 100 minutes. Fairly entertaining as you watched but fully forgotten once the house lights brightened between daily showings, those types of movies had the run of the theater screens and for an enthusiast like myself and on a tight student budget, University Square 4 made it very easy to keep up with all of the latest releases without breaking the bank, even though the overall quality was lacking.
Nowadays, even as movies have grown to be more homogeneous, they have also grown to be more sophisticated in their presentation, which makes a movie like Jodie Foster's "Money Monster" an odd kind of throwback almost. It is indeed a mildly diverting film, an intermittently involving thriller that runs a hair less than 100 minutes and true to so many of those types of films from the past, its level of artistic quality is surprisingly low. Certainly, I have seen many films much worse than this one but it was unquestionably so disappointing that a film that carried this level of pedigree and talent in front of and behind the cameras could come up with a full length feature so cliched, formulaic and conceptually shallow considering its especially timely subject matter. Trust me, I wouldn't steer you wrong. "Money Monster" is not worth the amount of money that you would spend for a night out at the movies.
"Money Monster" stars George Clooney as cable television financial expert/huckster Lee Gates, a figure that makes even "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer look subtle by comparison. 24 hours before the fateful broadcast as depicted in the film, the IBIS Global Capital's stock inexplicably crashed due to a "glitch" in the algorithm, costing its investors a loss of $800 million. As Grant prepares for a puff piece interview with IBIS CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West from HBO's "The Wire") to explain the reasons of the crash, Camby has unexpectedly departed to Geneva on business...supposedly.
As Grant's staff attempts to locate Camby and has alternately placed IBIS Chief Communications Officer Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) as his proxy for the interview, unbeknownst to the entire crew, deliveryman Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) has infiltrated the studio armed with a gun and a vest of explosives which he forces Grant to wear on live television. Kyle, who has lost his entire life savings in the IBIS crash after investing due to Grant's endorsement of the company upon his television program, now demands answers and revenge.
With only a tiny studio crew plus the program's director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) remaining in the control room, this day's episode of "Money Monster" turns into a televised hostage crisis situation where one increasingly unhinged member of the working class threatens to take the upper class down in flames with him.
For all practical purposes, the plot of "Money Monster" easily has potential for being a tightly wound pot-boiler that taps angrily into the intense tenor of the times and our socio/political and economic climate. In fact, I think we actually need a film like that right now, in order to keep the conversation about economic disparity and inequality at the forefront, as well as piggy-backing off of the critical and box office success of Adam McKay's Academy Award winning "The Big Short" (2015). Yes, "Money Monster" is essentially a "popcorn movie," but that does not mean that this brand of popcorn cannot be substantive, as it could have utilized a palpable sense of outrage to fuel the thriller narrative to crackling effect.
Unfortunately, Jodie Foster's film fails in that regard. I would say the economic outrage is apparent during the film but only in fits and starts and overall, instead of urgency, "Money Monster" is often flat and even boring. Such a shame as the film clearly has much inherent material to work with including a sly yet teeth baring satire about our societal addiction to fame and living life through all manner of screens, consistently blurring the lines and perceptions of reality and fantasy. And yet, "Money Monster" is toothless, painless and by film's conclusion, considerably pointless.
My criticisms are not designed to suggest that the level of ambition a project of this sort woud require is out of Jodie Fosters' creative reach. Quite the contrary, Foster possesses more than her fair share of projects within her filmography that find the common ground between entertainment and the provocative, most notably Jonathan Kaplan's "The Accused" (1988). In fact, it feels more than clear that Foster perhaps wished for this film to exist within the same cinematic universe as the likes of Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) and Spike Lee's "Inside Man" (2006), two highly celebrated crime themed films starring New York City and the latter in which she co-starred. In fact, even if she didn't want to aim as highly as those films, she could have aimed for a first rate urban thriller along the likes of F. Gary Gray's "The Negotiator" (1998).
Certainly the presence of both Julia Roberts and George Clooney suggest something much more prevalent than mere star wattage as between the two of them, some of their finest films include the Steven Soderbergh's "Erin Brockovich" (2000), David O. Russell's "Three Kings" (1999), Stephen Gaghan's "Syriana" (2000), and Tony Gilroy's "Michael Clayton" (2007).
In all of those earlier films, we had been given distinctly idiosyncratic characters to become involved with via smart, sharply written screenplays in service of the expert performances and direction. In every case, these were complex, unapologetically adult films that never dumbed down their material at the expense of mass appeal.
And yet, as I watched "Money Monster," I felt as if all of the major participants just were not trying hard enough. Nothing felt terrible, by any means. The performances are good, I guess and Foster's direction is serviceable enough but I found myself too often being sidelined by the weak screenplay, which contained a collective of underwritten characters that never extended beyond cardboard. While the motivations contained within the film's primary conflict are strong enough, it was in the execution that I felt that "Money Monster" never extended itself beyond being workmanlike. I needed passion and anger and all that I saw and felt was a by the numbers thriller that rarely provided any thrills. Truth be told, Brett Ratner's populist comedy "Tower Heist" (2011) contained a more honest and obvious level of rage against the machine than any one moment contained in Foster's film.
Dear readers, there really is not much more that I can say about "Money Monster" because it was the type of film that just did not inspire much thought about it while I watched and definitely not afterwards. Even now as I write, my memories of it are quickly evaporating. I just find it difficult to accept how creative individuals like Clooney, Roberts and Foster could have allowed themselves to just go with the flow of material that is so markedly lesser than many of the films they have each previously made.
You know, if they wanted to have some fun and hang out together, that's just fine. But maybe next time, just go out to dinner and not spend millions upon millions of dollars under the pretense of making an "important" film that seemingly none of them cared very much about in the first place.
And like so many of those movies that I saw long ago at University Square 4, Jodie Foster's "Money Monster" is rapidly finding its way into the realm of forgotten films of my past. Don't let it be one of yours.
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