Money Monster is a suspenseful hostage drama directed by Jodie Foster. The film showcases a hostage situation on the set of a financial television show called "Money Monster." Money Monster, like the recent film The Big Short, focuses on the fallout of a financial crisis. The difference being that Money Monster's financial crisis is fictional and jumps straight into the public reaction rather than showing the real events as they occur.
Jodie Foster manages to weave it all in quite well and Foster's direction allows the suspenseful thriller aspect of the film to thrive amidst the tense situation taking place. Unfortunately, every time the film cut away from the claustrophobic hostage crisis the pace of the film slowed down. This is large part to the phenomenal performances that engage the audience into the tense atmosphere that's been expertly executed.
George Clooney nails the personality of the zany wisecracking host of "Money Monster". Clooney gets to fool around a bit in the beginning, but also gets some terrific opportunities to explore more of the earthly vulnerable humanity of Lee Gates as is to be expected in a tense environment.
Julia Roberts also does quite well as the director of the show, Patty Feen. Roberts' role primarily finds her advising Gates on how to carefully defuse the situation and she handles the "voice of reason" role nicely.
Jack O'Connell also gets to showcase a wide range of emotion as Kyle Budwell. Budwell is certainly the most relatable character in the film as the everyman. O'Connell's performance is one of the highlights of the film. My favorite aspect of the film was seeing him slowly build a necessary friendship with Gates that allowed for a very emotional scene towards the film's conclusion. Those three performances really elevated the film overall, but weren't able to save the lackluster elements outside the "Money Monster" set.
Giancarlo Esposito is one of my favorite television actors, but really didn't add any depth or intrigue to his character that any other actor wouldn't be able to do and just seemed to do a serviceable job. Really any actor could have played the role of that police captain and it would have been just as effective.
One actor that caught me off guard was Christopher Denham who was the producer of "Money Monster", Ron Sprecher. Denham added a surprising bit of comedic relief that never took away from the seriousness of the situation, making for a nice standout among the supporting cast. On a side note, IMDB is a very reliable source I use when writing a review and I caught something quite hilarious that I had to share with my readers. There are multiple anchormen in the film and instead of crediting them as "Anchorman #1," "Anchorman #2," and so on, they are credited as "An Anchorman," "Another Anchorman," and "Yet Another Anchorman."
Anyways, Money Monster is best looked upon as a performance piece, the technical elements are just fine but the cinematography and editing never really wowed me. The heart of the film is the standout performances and intensity of the hostage situation. I found the financial elements of the film to never be fleshed out as much as they could or should have been. In comparison to The Big Short, Money Monster never quite explained the economic jargon to the audience. The answers to the questions being asked of this financial crisis were a bit cliché, so I feel the film failed itself and the audience in that regard.
Money Monster is a well-acted and well-directed suspenseful experience that's not necessarily best seen in cinemas. If you're interested in the film I would recommend waiting for it's home video release and either rent or buy the film.
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