MONEY MONSTER (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: George Clooney, Jack O'Connell, Julia Roberts
DIRECTOR: Jodie Foster
GENRE: Thriller/Dark Comedy

Money Monster is that extra dark (85% cacao) type of comedy--meaning that the darker it is, the less it will register with the average moviegoer as being comedy, though there were a couple of moments when the whole audience was a-titter at the showing I attended. Packaged as a taut thriller, Money Monster gets right to it--no song and dance. Except...uh...for the actual song and dance number at the beginning.

George Clooney is Lee Gates, a TV financial analyst--sort of the Apollo Creed of the breed--who hams it up while dispensing stock tips, one of which bombs (delayed pun coming up) badly when the stock of a company he has touted tanks to the tune of an 800 million dollar loss. Naturally, some people are going to be distressed about that--like those who took Gates' advice to heart and invested heavily--one of whom is young Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell), who sneaks onto the set of the show and takes Gates hostage, threatening to shoot the star if the program doesn't continue live under Budwell's "direction."  Kyle lost all of his savings by following Gates' advice on a "hot tip" stock, and now he's demanding some answers. It's edge-of-your-seat tension from there on out, as control booth director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) tries to make all the right moves to keep loose cannon Kyle--who has strapped a bomb vest onto Gates--from making the whole joint go KABOOM!

Bernie Sanders fans should appreciate the theme here--that Wall Street is evil and corrupt--but deeper than that, in my interpretation, is an indictment of capitalism itself, which stokes the unmitigated greed of those who can't see the green of the forest for the long green of the dollar signs dazzling their eyes (and that should resonate with Michael Moore fans as well).

The only trouble is that Money Monster, which starts with a reasonably believable scenario, gets more and more wildly implausible as it speeds along, leading to your typically neat and tidy Hollywood ending. But it did keep me awake throughout, which is more than I can say for some of the films I've seen recently. (If something like this were to ever happen live on CNN, I could see them cutting in at the most critical moments to do their regular commercial breaks--the ultimate irony--and I think they should have put that in the movie!). 

What I've noticed about George Clooney's performances, over a succession of his films that I've seen, is that he sometimes seems to be somewhere else, delivering his lines in what strikes me as a perfunctory manner, but then all of a sudden he kicks it into gear and he's right on the money, which is the case here.

Kudos to Julia Roberts for signing onto a project where she's in a supporting role. I found her believable as Patty Fenn, whose personal issues with Gates will come to the fore in the middle of the action.

But Money Monster belongs to young Jack O'Connell as Kyle, whose angst and sweat-dripping desperation I totally bought into. Now and then you're having a bad day...enough gets to be enough...and you take a TV host hostage at gunpoint and get the whole city in a panicked uproar. It could happen. He should have consulted with me before acting hastily,  as I could have imparted the first rule of prudent investment strategy: DIVERSIFY!

Grade: B

JILL'S TAKE

I agree with Tim about young Jack O'Connell's acting. Brilliant. When Money Monster focuses on him and his inept take-over of a TV station, the result is riveting. I only wish I could say the same about the first half of the film. Setting up Clooney's egotistical character (a Jim Kramer type with hair) took far too long. And as thrillers go, that's a definite no-no. I also felt much of the stock trader lingo and financial explanations were unnecessary and slowed down the pace.

That being said, I enjoyed the movie. A lot. And the cameo performance of Emily Meade as the very pregnant, very pissed off wife of the gunman, is dark humor at its best. When asked to go on camera to plead with her husband not to do anything foolish, she lambastes him instead for investing their life's savings so foolishly. Unexpected and delightfully quirky. 

I noticed at the beginning of the film the credits read: A Film By Jodie Foster. I so admire actors, especially women, who dare to take a different creative path. Some of her other directorial credits include 2 episodes of Orange Is The New Black and 1 episode of House of Cards. Way to go, Jodie! Way to go!

Grade: B (sorry to be such a copycat, Tim)

THREE ON DVD--capsule reviews of : CARNAGE *** TAKE SHELTER*** IN TIME

CARNAGE  (2011)


Rated:  R


Two eleven-year old boys get into an altercation. One swings a stick at the other and knocks out a couple of teeth. The two sets of parents get together and try to smooth things over in a polite and civilized manner. The stage is now set (literally--the film is adapted from a stage play) for some delicious dark humor, and some not so appetizing cobbler dessert, in Roman Polanski's Carnage.


Jodie Foster and John C.. Reilly play the odd couple--Michael and Penelope. She's a liberal minded writer. He's in the household supply business, and something of a hamster hating sociopath.  Christopher Waltz and Kate Winslet are the upscale pair--Alan and Nancy. He's a corporate attorney, and she's an investment broker.                


Initially, everyone is polite. Then, accusation and counter accusation begin to fly in an escalating manner.  Booze is poured. We are treated to the spectacle of Nancy tossing her cookies (actually, the aforementioned apple cobbler)  all over her husband and Penelope's precious coffee table books.  There are great lines like: Their son is a threat to national security!  Then, when the spouses turn their rancor upon each other: If you ask me, the couple is the worst ordeal God has ever inflicted on us. 


This is a heavyweight cast, and each of the four turns in a bravura performance. But Jodie Foster's tightly wound Penelope--ready to snap at any moment--is something to behold.


Other than the opening setup and the closing shot, Carnage takes place entirely inside Michael and Penelope's Brooklyn apartment. The intimate,  close-range aspect of it is reminiscent of My Dinner With Andre, but with decidedly less civil overtones.

Grade:  A


***********************************


TAKE SHELTER  (2011)


Rated:  R


Michael Shannon stars as a normal family man who begins having visions of impending disaster, and starts building an underground bomb shelter in his back yard. His wife (Jessica Chastain) thinks he's going schizo. Is he?  Pony up some scratch to see it and find out.


There is a building sense of foreboding in Take Shelter  (sort of like the way I feel about the upcoming presidential election). It all leads to an understated, yet potent and portentous ending. Some may be disappointed with it, but those are the folks who need to have everything spelled out for them. Anyway, it all fits into the groove of what is in the back of the minds of a lot of people as the countdown to December 21st, 2012 continues.  If anybody is crazy, let's hope it's the Mayans. (Those knuckleheads!) 


Take Shelter  was on a lot of top ten lists of 2011.  It misses mine, but not by a whole lot.


Grade:  B +


**********************


IN TIME  (2011)


Rated:  PG-13


Time is money, that's how the saying goes. In the world of the future, that is literally true. People are genetically programmed to stop aging at 25. Then, an electronic digital clock implanted in your wrist begins to count down the days, hours, and minutes until you reach 26. You've got one year, and it's up to you to beg, borrow, or steal more time--otherwise you'll drop stone cold dead. (Hell of a birthday present, eh?) 


Yep, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Those who are short on time live in ghettos and scramble to stay alive day to day. The rich, who have hundreds of years in the bank, live in their own segregated world. Just like now. The currency medium is the only thing that has changed.  (The way it works is you drive up to a toll booth, for example,  and stick your arm out and the attendant collects a few minutes off your life...yes, you can LITERALLY be nickled and dimed to death!)


 Justin Timberlake stars as Will Salas,  a poor dude who is bequeathed a hundred years by a guy who no longer wants to live. But Salas is accused of the man's murder, and he's on the run. He's pissed-off about the inherent unfairness of the system, (like the Occupy Wall Street gang) so he buys himself some threads and decides to crash the rich folks' party.  There he meets the super hot daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of an extremely wealthy man. She's intrigued by him, and they both end up on the lam, running from the "timekeepers" who are out to bring them in. And that's where In Time  kicks into another gear. 


The movie opened to mostly lackluster reviews, but I was surprised by how much it grew on me 
as it sped toward its climax. (You only want to do that in the movies, of course.)


Grade:  B