‘Money Monster’ has a down day on Wall Street

Jodie Foster channels her inner ’70s filmmaker in the slick, streamlined Money Monster, her cinematic shout-out to “mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” films such as Network and Dog Day Afternoon. Her first movie as a director in five years lacks those films’ resonance, but there’s no denying Money Monster’s timely appeal.

As with last year’s The Big Short and 99 Homes, Money Monster plays on universal financial fears of systemic corruption and unscrupulous greed that can bankrupt those with more integrity than dollars. That’s why when an armed man, Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), sneaks into a TV studio where the obnoxious stock-market guru Lee Gates (George Clooney) hosts his loud and loopy Money Monster show, the line between hero and villain is paper-thin.

Kyle is one of us, an ordinary Joe who thinks he can make the system work for him. When he sinks $60,000 worth of savings into Ibis Clear Capital, a company that Lee shilled for on his show, Kyle thinks his ship has come in — and it did. But it turned out to be the Titanic.

A “glitch” in the market sent Ibis stock into a nosedive, wiping out small investors like Kyle while leaving Lee — who could probably find $60K in his couch cushions — with just more fodder for another comedic bit.

But no one’s laughing when Kyle takes Lee hostage live on television, forcing the show’s director in the control room, Patty Finn (Julia Roberts), to play the abitrator between the often conflicting demands of Kyle and the police.

Kyle also wants the head of Ibis, Walt Camby (Dominic West), brought to the studio as well. Kyle wants more than just to be made financially whole again. He wants a televised apology and admission that we’re all just dirt to be crushed underneath the $1,000 bootheels of people like Lee and Walt.

Unfolding in real time over just more than 90 minutes, Money Monster hints at being a more suspenseful and taut, topical thriller than it turns out to be. While always compulsively watchable, and often surprisingly funny, it loses some of its steam once it becomes clear where it’s going.

Written by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore, and Jim Kouf, the film has a tidy, TV feel to it, perhaps because DiFiore and Kouf have written for a ton of TV series. Instead of being a knockout punch against what they present as a rigged system, it’s more of a glancing blow. And, for a film that wants to seem like it’s ripped from real life, it stretches credibility to the breaking point by having things happen within 90 minutes “real time” that could not possibly happen that quickly.

But what makes Money Monster work as well as it does are the performances. Clooney was born to play a character like Lee, a slick, loose-limbed charlatan who has a soul buried deeply somewhere underneath the aging playboy facade. Roberts doesn’t have much to do but bark orders to her frightened staff and Clooney in his earpiece while trying to keep the gunman calm. But you can feel both her growing exasperation and her coming into her own as she takes charge of the situation.

O’Connell is one of those actors who always seems like he’s on the verge of a breakthrough that never happens. He was terrific in the small films Starred Up and ’71 and the flawed, would-be blockbuster Unbroken, which didn’t turn out to be the career-making hit it seemed like it would be.

While the obvious comparison here is to Al Pacino’s raving Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon, O’Connell makes Kyle his own, turning him into a sympathetic but troubled man who has reached his breaking point.

If nothing else, Money Monster offers an efficient, entertaining alternative to almost everything else in the multiplex these days. It gives those hoping for a superhero-free summer something to see while they wait for fall to get here. It’s too bad that it doesn’t give them too much more than that.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 9:19 AM with the headline "‘Money Monster’ has a down day on Wall Street."