Money Monster (2016)

Absolutely brilliant

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Worst movie I have ever seen Okay worst 30 mins ever( couldn't bear anymore)

This movie is pretty good as a movie. Lets get the obvious parts first, shall we?The plot is pretty modern... and I mean, modern. It is a plot that could just worked at this time and place. This is both good and bad: Good because you actually feel that something like this could happen at any moment. Bad because it makes the movie obsolete in the exact moment something like this can be proven that would not work. It is a deep plot, but extremely unlikely that in any event similar they just don't destroy the receiver easily. Also it overhauls: you perceive the plot twists a lot of time before they happen.The characters are solid, but not enough for you to care about them. Not even George Clooney's face would make you bet for him, although he is a really solid actor.The music is terrible. Melodramatic I-know-I-heard-this-before music mixed with rap.Cinemathography and photography? Excellent. Just on point. It is a movie about making TV. It works.In short, not a good movie, not a bad movie. Just a middle field movie with nothing special. Watch it once and forget about it.

After reading a review of this that actually DOES the math involved in this film, I have a terrific headache. Guess the reviewer didn't find "Money Monster" all that correct in terms of the way the stock market works.Thankfully, I was unaware of that while watching "Money Monster" from 2016, which should have been so much better than it was. Director Jodie Foster did some good things here but ultimately missed the boat.The story concerns a Jim Kramer-type TV host, Lee Gates (George Clooney) who advises people about stocks on his show. Unfortunately, one of his big recommendations has somehow lost $800 million. A delivery man, Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) a stockholder out $60,000, sneaks onto the set with a bomb jacket, demanding to know where his money went. Behind the scenes, Gates' director (Julia Roberts) speaks to Gates through his earpiece, encouraging him to stall for time while they try to get answers. The CEO of the company is on a plane somewhere, leaving his PR director (Caitriona Balfe) holding the proverbial bag.The cast does a terrific job, but this was a tension-filled situation that didn't seem to have a great deal of tension. And as a satire about greed, it's all over the place. As the rap-performing stock analyst, Clooney is great; but the character disintegrates -- he goes from master showman to feeling sorry for himself as he shares his story with the interloper. Normally I'm no fan of Julia Roberts, but she is wonderful here as a true professional doing her best to defuse the situation, keep Gates calm, and move people to safety.A stronger point of view would have helped "Money Monster," but in the end, there wasn't much focus.

George Clooney plays one of those financial news network know-it-alls, rolling up his sleeves and getting to work upping his predictions about some stocks and damning others. He's self centered and petty. He wears costumes and does the macarena at the introduction to his show, which is shot on a New York set full of elaborate displays of electronic junk. Julia Roberts, the show's director, is in the control room behind a glass panel, providing the voice in his ear. Then, during one routine but colorful show, Jack O'Connell sneaks onto the set, holds everyone at gunpoint and makes Clooney don an explosive vest. O'Connell, an ordinary working stiff from Queens, has lost his life saving investing in a stock that Clooney had pimped and that had then dropped like a plumb line, just like mine always do. O'Connell angrily queries Clooney about the $800 million lost in one day by Ibis Corporation. Well, the situation is tense, I can tell you.The technology was sometimes over my head. There were TV cameras and monitors all over the place and prominent use was made of smart phone like Blackberries and Blueberries and everybody is texting one another and shouting into microphones and making sure their earplugs were properly seated in the external auditory canals and I don't know what all. This sometimes induced a confused state of consciousness but didn't interfere with the essence of the plot. The CEO of Ibis had used a manual override on the algorithm (or "algo") and sneakily caused the stock to drop after shorting it. Something like that, anyway. Clooney, having just found this out, accuses the CEO of fraud. But is it? It sounds more like larceny of some sort, or maybe embezzlement. No matter.It was directed by Jodie Foster, who is smart and who knows her way around cameras. She does a decent enough job but the details of the script are torturous and sometimes you can get lost in them. Who's shouting to whom around here? And how in the name of Bog could she have let O'Connell get away with waving that pistol around so wildly -- and holding it sideways, something that became a cliché many years ago. It made me wince.Clooney is fine, as usual. He's a pretty good actor. There are a plethora of stars that play action scenes impassively, but when Clooney is batted around the set or has a pistol shoved in his face he looks genuinely scared. Have you ever seen (or imagined) Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone look truly scared? No? I thought not. The best they can do when threatened with lethal force is look mildly annoyed.Julia Roberts is Julia Roberts, looking no less good without ten layers of iridescent make up. Caitriona Balfe is just fine as Ibis's PR person, formally known as a chief communications officer. She's very sexy and she's Irish. But I felt sorry for the aggrieved Jack O'Connell. He overacts wildly, uses a fake New York City accent (he's Irish too), and has some sort of speech impediment, causing him to deliver a pale simulacrum of his most passionate lines. At the same time, he certainly LOOKS the part of the washed out urban loser.All together, not a bad movie but not a particularly well-done movie either -- not even a glimpse of Maria Bartiromo. Better to have to sit through "Money Monster" than to have invested in Lucent Technology.