4.5 stars. Rated R, for brief sexual content, violence and frequent profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.13.16
Between this new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, Margin Call and The Big Short, one gets the impression that people have become
deeply concerned about corporate malfeasance and Wall Street shenanigans.
Gee, I can’t imagine why.
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| The calm before the storm: Unaware that this day is about to become anything but average, TV financial advice guru Lee Gates (George Clooney) and his producer, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts), discuss the talking points for their upcoming live broadcast. |
Director Jodie Foster’s Money Monster may not be as imaginatively
brilliant as last year’s The Big Short,
but it’s just as entertaining and pointedly audacious. Scripters Alan DiFiore,
Jim Kouf and Jamie Linden set up a hair-trigger premise and then develop it
with an unlikely — but quite successful — blend of suspenseful twists and scathing
humor.
Along the way, they also skewer
the 1 percent who’ve absolutely, completely — and without awareness or shame — abandoned any sense of
comradeship with the rest of us ordinary mooks.
This is only Foster’s fourth
big-screen feature as director, after having cut her teeth with 1991’s poignant
Little Man Tate; she obviously
chooses her projects carefully. “Money Monster” proves that the double
Oscar-winning actress has matured into an equally capable shot-caller. This is
the sort of endeavor that could have collapsed any number of times, in less
skilled hands; she unerringly navigates the ship past all dangerous shoals.
With thoughtful, infuriating,
hilarious and even unexpectedly poignant results.
George Clooney stars as
high-profile financial TV guru Lee Gates, who has built a viewership on the strength
of sideshow antics more befitting the local news clowns who used to dole out
weather predictions while dressed in funny outfits. We get an extended view of
Gates’ smirky, hyperactive — and insultingly patronizing — shtick as he begins
one of his financial analysis/advice segments on an average day, under the much
calmer guidance of longtime producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts).
It ain’t pretty.
It’s also a not very exaggerated
jab at what a serious topic such as money management has become, in our cynical,
bread-and-circuses era of cable/satellite infotainment. Any semblance of capably
researched public service has been abandoned — goodness, that would be boring — in favor of keeping the
gullible masses distracted. And hey: If Gates misstates, exaggerates or even
lies today, he won’t even think about amending or retracting tomorrow; he’ll
simply proceed with an all-new set of encouraging prevarications and
half-truths.
Just like dozens of shrill,
malicious and defiantly deceitful radio show hosts.
