Are you ready for yet another movie about Wall Street scams, deceit, and
corruption? Or a film about how the media manipulates events? Well probably not – at least not the shallow and tedious Money Monster.
George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the cocky and obnoxious host of a popular money-management show. He is still perplexed about the $800 million loss posted by Ibis, a company he had both praised and recommended on air. The head honcho (Dominic West) has vanished after explaining the massive loss as the result of a computer glitch.
Julia Roberts is featured as Patty Fenn, the director of the show who plays an even larger role in Lee's life when Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell),
armed with a gun, takes over the studio and orders the host to put on a vest armed with a bomb. He is mad as hell (taking a line from Network) after having lost his $60,000 inheritance invested in Ibis stock. Kyle, a working-class guy, blames Lee and the CEO of Ibis for ruining his life with their greed, irresponsibility, and selfishness.
Jody Foster directs this topical thriller that seems to borrow a number of elements from Dog Day Afternoon. There are several far-fetched plot developments and almost all the critical slams on corporations, capitalism, and the media have been said before. When we finally learn what happened with Ibis, the explanation goes by so fast that any lessons to be learned from the tale are missed by us and apparently by the characters as they just start planning their next show.
At one point, Patty says: "It's all so simple yet so moronic." That's a fitting summary of Money Monster.