The Big Short was the drama/comedy that was an angry, middle finger polemic at the banking/mortgage crisis… the film Money Monster is the melodrama of the same basic idea. And melodrama is not a compliment here. The premise is that a down-on-his-luck guy took the advice of a Jim Cramer/Mad Money type tv personality (played by George Clooney) and invests what little money he has only to find himself wiped out when the investment loses 800 million dollars on a “glitch” in the algorithm that buys and sells stocks. So he arms himself and holds the studio hostage until he gets some answers.
It’s a fine premise and credit to the movie for being angry about a broken system. I just wish the script had been tighter. But there are weirdly flat stretches that should be firing on all angry cylinders. I think the movie wants to be “mad as well, and not gonna take it anymore” (or “Attica! Attica! Attica! – Dog Day Afternoon levels of tense) but it never remotely rises to that level.
The script can be just kind of dumb in between not having enough to actually say in its anger. It kind of lets the guy with the gun off the hook a little bit too… which is fine if they want us to feel compassion for him, but it can’t make up its mind if they want him to be a good man who was wronged and is at his breaking point or a working-class hero. The movie doesn’t have the guts to go either way and winds up doing very little. Similarly, the one guy responsible for the financial crisis thing… they deliver a scapegoat instead of indicting the system… they want to give him a reasoned argument but that argument is half-hearted and disingenuous at best.
This isn’t a terrible movie but it is a terrible disappointment. A film about a hostage taking and a rage against the machine should be a nail-biting, tightly-wound thrilled that never lets you relax in your seat. This movie failed at that. But it’s still well acted and has its heart in the right place.
Score: 72