I haven’t had this much fun with economics and Wall Street misbehavior since The Big Short, which this film resembles on several levels: mostly because both fact-based sagas concern Wall Street corporate heads with more money than humanity, who don’t give a damn how their actions affect “reg’lar folks” like me and thee.
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| When Keith (Paul Dano) worries that his precarious investment choices might obliterate their hard-earned savings, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) — trusting him implicitly — insists that he should go for it. |
More crucially, this is a David vs. Goliath story where the little guys actually come out on top. To a degree. (Some of them.)
The villains here are the hedge-fund bastards notorious for swooping in to buy an ailing company — or franchise — for the express purpose of gutting its remaining assets and then departing, leaving bankruptcy and thousands of lost jobs and pensions. They’re also infamous for “shorting” a company’s stock: a skeevy purchasing maneuver that bets said company will do worse in the future than it’s doing currently.
(I can think of no better reason to revive public stockades.)
Gillespie’s film is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s best-selling The Antisocial Network, his thoroughly researched account of the now-infamous GameStop stock debacle. The sharp, sassy script is by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, both former financial reporters for the Wall Street Journal.
(Mezrich has a flair for this sort of ripped-from-financial-headlines material; his previous books include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which hit movie screens as 2008’s 21; and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which became 2010’s The Social Network. His next book, due in November, is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History. Can’t wait.)
The GameStop chronicle — yes, the mall-based retail stores that sold new and used computer games and equipment — represented one of life’s occasionally wild perfect storms. It likely never would have happened without the convergence of Covid lockdowns, savvy social media users, and a still-festering, street-level desire to somehow get back at those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown.
The unlikely underdog is geeky, mild-mannered Keith Gill — marvelously played, with aw-shucks sincerity, by Paul Dano — an amateur stock analyst and dedicated social media user introduced here in January 2021, as he posts details of his investment activities from the basement of his home in Brockton, Mass. The basement may be a humble setting, but his multiple cameras, computers and screens produce impressively professional visuals.
Keith’s YouTube and Twitter handle: Roaring Kitty. (His Reddit username, DFV, is abbreviated from a nom-de-Internetthat cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog.)
He becomes intrigued by GameStop, which — despite circling the drain in the retail sector — he feels is undervalued. He sinks his life savings into the stock, posts about having done so, and graciously deflects the rude comments from followers convinced that he’s out of his mind.
Keith has one loyal ally: his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley), who trusts and backs him without reservation. Woodley makes it abundantly clear that Caroline is neither blind nor naïve; she’s a smart, perceptive woman who simply has faith in her husband.
Within a few days, to Keith’s delight, GameStop stock begins to climb … if only minutely. Even so, that’s enough to ramp up his enthusiasm, which in turn proves infectious.
The bad guys, also based on actual individuals, are hedge fund billionaires Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio), Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman) and Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen); the latter’s Melvin Capital has put most of its recent efforts into shorting GameStop stock. The are-they-trustworthy guys, also based on actual individuals, are Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan) and Baiju Bhatt (Rushi Kota), founders of Robinhood, a commission-free stock-purchasing app whose mission is to “provide everyone with access to financial markets, not just the wealthy.”
At first, Keith’s growing roster of followers buy GameStop shares because they expect to make money. But as the movement grows, and the stock’s prices begin to climb exponentially, a “stick it to the man” culture takes over, as Keith and individual investors realize that their purchases — driving GameStop share prices ever upward — have the potential to do genuine damage to the hedge fund short-sellers.
But only as long as everybody holds onto their purchases … because a sudden massive sell-off would play into Melvin Capital’s hands. So the question becomes, Who blinks first? And when?
If you approach this film assuming that narrative suspense over stock trades is impossible, think again. And, as was the case with The Big Short, Schuker Blum and Angelo deftly “educate” us along the way, dispensing terminology, concepts and activities in easily digestible chunks.
Gillespie, Schuker Blum, Angelo and genius editor Kirk Baxter constantly cut between what essentially becomes eight interlocked short films that focus on all these individuals: Keith and his family; Plotkin, Griffin and Cohen; Tenev and Bhatt; and four amateur investors. This quartet — fabricated characters — includes Pittsburgh-based nurse Jenny Campbell (American Ferrera), GameStop store cashier Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and college roommates Harmony and Riri (Talia Ryder and Myha’la Herrold). The latter two initially are both six figures in debt, thanks to student loans.
Each character’s net worth is tracked via running tallies, as the story proceeds.
Every performance is sublime, including smaller roles such as Keith’s parents, Steve and Elaine (Clancy Brown and Kate Burton). Numerous characters are laugh-out-loud funny, starting with Pete Davidson’s comical portrayal of Keith’s failure-to-launch younger brother Kevin: a DoorDash driver who supplements his meals by snatching and slurping portions of orders before leaving them on somebody’s porch.
Keith is by turns belligerent, confrontational, defensive and apologetic, all at warp speed, and wrapped up in chaotic physical mannerisms that make Davidson seem part rubber band.
Herrold is equally hilarious as the loud and unapologetically crude Riri, whose vulgar clarion call — each time she and Harmony await Keith’s next post — is a shrill “Where ma [kitty]?!?!”
Ferrera represents the quiet frustration of average folks who dream of somehow bettering their lot in life; Jenny exudes hope and nobility. Ramos’ Marcus, clearly much smarter than he seems, chafes under the ludicrous “sales pointer” mandates within the GameStop manual that his boss wields like a weapon.
Offerman is note-perfect as the smugly arrogant Griffin, an alpha predator patiently waiting for his next victim. Rogen’s Plotkin, although similarly rapacious — the man’s public display of conspicuous consumption is truly sickening — lacks the four-chess-moves-ahead savvy that has kept Griffin atop the heap for so long.
Those who followed this saga, back in 2021, will know what’s coming; everybody else is likely to be surprised when the story hits what seems to be its climax … only halfway through this fast-paced 104-minute romp. Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get crazier … they do. And then Gillespie really tightens the suspenseful screws.
One strong caveat: Although most of the soundtrack’s frequently sprinkled pop and rap tunes are tolerable, early scenes are backed by Cardi B’s disgusting and thoroughly obnoxious “WAP,” which could drive sensitive folks out of the theater. I understand its use as an anthem for this saga’s in-yo-face Reddit crowd, but still…
That aside, Dumb Money is a blast, from start to finish. And you definitely must hang around for the end credit “What happened to them” text blocks, with photos of the actors alongside their actual counterparts.
Oh, and the film’s title is the derogatory term by which Wall Street fat cats refer to individual players in the stock market — seriously! — along with the parallel phrase “retail investors.” (I’m not sure which is more insulting.)
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