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Money Monster starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O'Connell. — Money Monster starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Jack O’Connell. Image via Amazon.

Money Monster Plot Summary – No Spoilers

Lee Gates (George Clooney) is the cocky and popular host of the finance show Money Monster where he puts on extravagant stage performances and sheds out investment out like the ultimate authority. And while he knows what he is talking about, an unexpected “glitch” at the investment company IBUS has him

cause a lot of people to lose money: a total of 800 million, to be exact. The company CCO Diane Lester (Highlander’s Caitriona Balfe) is apologetic and sticks to the talking points while the CEO Walt Camby (The Affair’s Dominic West) is nowhere to be found.

This doesn’t really affect the rich Lee or his director Patty (Julia Roberts) – until a blue collar victim named Kyle (Jack O’Connell) takes them hostage on live television. He puts a gun to Lee’s head and makes him wear an explosive vest. Kyle holds a deadman’s trigger and demands answers. He wants to know how a “glitch” could happen, how Lee could give such shitty advice so confidently, and most importantly, he wants a word with Walt.

The police get quickly involved, but they don’t count on Lee’s humanity taking over and deciding to help Lee. And the more Lee and Patty listen to Kyle, the less they buy Walt’s glitch story. Can they find out what went wrong before it is too late?

Money Monster Movie Review

Money Monster is a modern movie in the vein of Mad City. While the plots differ, there are several similarities that got me nostalgic:

Mad City starring John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman. Image via moviepostershop.

An otherwise sane and decent man going mad when he loses his money. In Mad City, John Travolta gets fired from his job at a museum and takes the manager hostage, with the unexpected surprise of kids being there at the same time.
A not-so-empathetic reporter tries to control things (In Mad City, the reporter is played by Dustin Hoffman), but then he gets on the gunman’s side as he learns more about his situation.
We end up rooting for the wronged family man, but of course, ****spoilers**** they will tragically pay the price of taking justice into their own hands, even if we badly wanted them to win.
The police will make things worse.

The good things about Money Monster, apart from the stellar cast and director Jodie Foster, is that it feels like the emotional, humane drama/thrillers of the 90s. The not-so-great thing is it feels like we have seen this movie before.

And for some reason, while I was sad at the ending and enjoyed the time I spent on the movie, I didn’t feel as touched as I was when I watched Mad City.

And while Money Monster made more money at the box office and is a bit more highly rated at IMDB, I still prefer Mad City.

That said, as a 90s kid, I still feel Julia Roberts and George Clooney are more my generation than say Scarlett Johannson or Chris Hemsworth. I love seeing them on screen in lead roles. So for nostalgia and the love of cast and director, I still recommend giving Money Monster a shot. As familiar and predictable the story might feel, it still has more heart than a lot of stuff out there.

Money Monster is a 2016 movie written by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore, and Jim Kouf. The movie made over 93 million dollars worldwide. It’s budget is reported to be around 27 mil.

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Max Brackett’s (Dustin Hoffman) live “brush” with fellow reporter Kevin Hollander (Alan Alda) has resulted in Max’s being relocated to a local television, still dependent on his old network. Max is bored, as his boss Lou (Robert Prosky) won’t let him “move the line”( that is to interrupt the news objects’ lives for the sake of news)…

As luck would have it, however, Max accidentally runs into the story of a lifetime. As he is doing an interview at the museum run by Mrs. Banks (Blythe Danner), Sam Baily (John Travolta) decides to pay her a visit: she has just fired Sam, who was one of the two guards working for her. Sam, a husband and a father of 2, just wants his job back. But when Mrs. Banks can’t be bothered to give Sam two minutes, Sam brings out the big guns-literally. What he hasn’t planned on is the news reporter in the bathroom, and the group of young school kids on a school trip at the museum.

Soon, this turns into a career-defining opportunity for Max and a nightmare for Sam, it doesn’t take long for Sam to find Max out. But Max has no intention of letting the story go, even as he becomes a hostage. For one thing, Sam is not a psycho criminal but a desperate man who just wanted to be heard. Second, he is much more experienced than Sam when it comes to hostage situations. So from then on, Max helps Sam, and steers him in the direction that will help Sam and Max’s career.

But the news is just too big for Kevin Hollander to ignore and for the FBI to stay away. While Max mostly works to show Sam in a positive light, the rest seems intent on showing him as the ultimate villain. With the parents of the kids hating him, and his own wife trying to figure out how as to handle things, can good intentions be taken into account when a weapon and kids are involved? Or are the ratings just more important than humanity?

Mad City is one of my favorite films. It is from 1997, so today, you may not be moved by it as I was when I first saw it over a decade ago. After all, 1997 was before Youtube and Twitter and Facebook. The story could no way flow the way it was written. Probably one of the kids would have a high-tech phone with an internet connection or their teacher or Mrs. Banks…There would be no need to create a public poll as the public would create the buzz after they heard it. People would follow the news worldwide and it is likely that some of the pro-Sam audience would offer Sam a job and things would never quite get out of control. But it was shot in 1997, and it was all about the big networks and their ratings.

Yes, by now, probably you have seen at least tens of hostage situation movies where sometimes you were probably rooting for the villain. But this film is one of the better ones, and it does have a great cast. Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta make a great team.

I’d love to share my favorite line, but that would be a spoiler. Let me just say it is the final line of Dustin Hoffman. A really good take on the lust for ratings vs. the fight for survival.

Fun notes: Blythe Danner is Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother.

Mel Gibson is referenced a couple of times.

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