- Actors: Emily Meade, Caitriona Balfe, Christopher Denham, Giancarlo Esposito, Lenny Venito
- Director: Jodie Foster
- Producers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Lara Alameddine, Daniel Dubiecki
- Format: AC-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: French, Portuguese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Cantonese, Thai, Spanish, English
- Dubbed: Portuguese, French, Thai, Spanish
- Audio Description: English
- Region: All Regions
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: R
- Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
- Release Date: September 6, 2016
- Digital Copy Expiration Date: December 31, 2019
- Run Time: 99 minutes
Money Monster is a movie that works a
bit too sufficiently within the larger money-making system of the filmmaking
business for any commentary on the shallowness of cable news to carry any
righteous anger. While the film is efficiently made with a talented cast and
crew, it lacks the soul and the passion that the subject matter deserves.
Ultimately, this ends up resembling an episode to any number of police
procedural television shows, with a star-studded cast to distract from the derivative qualities of the screenplay. This may have been less disappointing had the
message of the film carried less relevance to our times.
George Clooney stars as an over-the-top TV
personality, Lee Gates, who hosts a show giving financial advice about the
stock market. The film takes place in real time during the final evening Lee is
broadcasting a show with his longtime producer, Patty (Julia Roberts). This
also happens to be the night that a young man named Kyle (Jack O’Connell)
decides to hijack the taping, holding Lee hostage on live television. Kyle lost
his savings taking bad financial advice from the show, and wants all
responsible to be held accountable for the world to see, including the CEO
(Dominic West) of the company he invested in.
The basic set-up
had me believing that the focus of the narrative would be on the social
injustices carried out against the working class, but instead it quickly
becomes a routine hostage suspense film. Watching this cast work together is
never boring, but the relevance of the story is dismissed for easy villains to
blame and a situation that removes itself from reality for a neat resolution. Money Monster is polished and entirely
watchable, while never raising the pulses or questions that it should. At the
very least, this offered adults something to watch in theaters this summer that
didn’t have to do with comic books or require 3D glasses to fully appreciate.
The Blu-ray
release comes with a Digital HD copy of the film, though no DVD. The extras on
the disc include a few featurettes, some deleted scenes, and a music video. The
best of the featurettes is an “Analysis of a Scene,” though there is also one
that focuses on the star power of George Clooney.
Entertainment Value:
6.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 7/10
Historical
Significance: 5/10
Special Features: 6.5/10
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