Money Monster

Hollywood's fascination of films that delve in the financial realm undoubtedly is a direct reflection of our financial obsession. Certainly ever since "Wall Street" where Gordon Gekko coined that famous expression, "greed is good", we have been a society focused on money. Since that time "Wall Street" has been rebooted and films like "Michael Clayton" and the documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story" have proved lucrative. So now we have "Money Monster" to sink our teeth into and sink into we do.

Lee Gates (George Clooney) is a bombastic TV personality whose popular financial network show, Money Monster has made him the money wiz of Wall Street. But after he hawks a high tech stock that mysteriously crashes, an irate investor, Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell), who lost his life savings, takes Gates, his crew, and his ace producer, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) hostage on air. Unfolding in real time, Gates and Fenn must find a way to keep themselves alive while simultaneously uncovering the truth behind a triangle of big money lies. The demand of Budwell is not to get his money back necessarily, but to find out what REALLY happened to 800,000 million dollars that was invested by all. He was adamant on the fact that Wall Street was manipulating the system instead of it being a computer glitch as the company he invested in was touting. Is it a glitch or is there something more sinister involved?

Others to round out the cast are Dominic West as Walt Camby, Caitriona Balfe as Diane Lester, Giancarlo Esposito as Captain Powell, Christopher Denham as Ron Sprecher, a producer of the show, Lenny Venito as Lenny, the cameraman, Chris Bauer as Lt. Nelson, Dennis Boutsikaris as Avery Goodloe, a CFO, Emily Meade as Molly, Condola Rashad as Bree, an assistant and Aaron Yoo as Won Joon.

This was brilliantly directed by Jodie Foster ("Little Man Tate" '91, "Home For the Holidays" '95, "The Beaver" '11). She hasn't helmed a lot, however the films she's directed have been caliber work. She was consummate in getting these actors to emit just the right amount of emotion at just the appropriate time. Of course these actors are amazing in their own right, the directing had to come into play. It was well written by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf based on a story by DiFiore and Kouf. these writers put together a script that not only was suspenseful, but sent a very clear message about our financial system and its inadequacies and deceit. This wasn't a situation that occurred post the 2008-09 financial collapse, but assuredly this scenario and many others could have happened at that time. This was simply these writers taking a scenario and creating a story that probably did, in fact, happen on some similar level. Using this young man, Budwell as a representative of us, the people, and utilizing Gates as a representative of the system, Wall Street, gave us a glimpse of the possibilities of what might have gone down during that financial collapse we experienced, especially when no one was charged or convicted of that crisis once it was 'investigated'.

This is a film that many should see-- to get a glimpse of what's happening around us and with our money, so maybe, just maybe we will be vigilantly careful where our funds are going and not just trust someone because that are the 'professional'. This film has it all: fine acting, directing, writing all with a great message and definitely something to think about when you leave the multiplex.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                    Rated: R                                   98mins.