Directed by Jodie Foster
Country: USA
Jodie Foster leans on two of the most revered Hollywood actors, George Clooney and Julia Roberts, to bring her new showy drama, “Money Monster”, to the forefront.
Despite the stars and the pertinent topic, which targets Wall Street and its financial uncleanness, Ms. Foster stubbornly opted for a standardized approach that frustrates both our expectations and the film’s ability to find a proper voice of its own.
We don’t have to wait too long for the action to begin, but that same action doesn’t take us beyond an insubstantial soap opera.
Lee Gates (Clooney), the loquacious host of a popular TV-show entitled “Money Monster”, is made hostage during his live show. The responsible is Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell), a humble laborer disguised of a deliveryman who invested all his money in the IBIS Clear Capital's stock, just as Lee had advised in the previous edition. Considered a safe investment at the time, IBIS suddenly crashed, apparently due to a computer glitch, which led Kyle to the ruin.
The infuriated man, feeling he was set up and wielding a gun, demands honest answers and forces Lee to put on a vest laden with explosives.
With nerves of steel, Patty Fenn (Roberts), Lee’s longtime director, is the one who maintains the men calm by getting some valuable answers.
Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe), IBIS chief communications officer, becomes a key identity, disclosing some sensitive information that will take them to the root of the problem: her boss, Walt Camby (Dominic West).
Already pelted with extremely fabricated circumstantial details – a security guard who wasn’t doing his job, a producer who was having sex with a co-worker during the show, the ineptness of the cops – the film went completely astray in its last part, where everything seemed unnatural and tendentiously sentimental.
Moreover, whenever Dominic Lewis’ musical score attempts to infuse some more emotion to the story, it ends up doing the opposite, increasing the commercial tones of the film and creating a thick barrier between the characters and me.
