Jodie Foster’s big-budget, star-driven, high-concept film Money Monster manages to have an excess of just about everything. But it doesn’t ever seem to know what the hell it wants to be.
In this hostage thriller/SNL comedy sketch/political drama, Clooney plays Lee Gates, the arrogant and schtick-loving host of the titular Money Monster, a sly and sensationalist stock market show modelled on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. Julia Roberts is his long-suffering, ever-capable director Patty, who serves as the uptight workaholic spinster to his wild womaniser, because apparently it’s the 1940s or an Aaron Sorkin film.
As the two exchange pithy banter and Gates uses pimp hats, skimpily clad dancers and innuendo to make stocks as sexy as possible, Foster seems to be setting up a satire of the media via some His Girl Friday dynamics.
The revelry is interrupted however, when Average Joe-type Kyle (Jack O’Connell) takes the studio hostage, demanding answers for why he lost his life savings on the stock market. O’Connell is as intense and empathetic as ever, his rage and humiliation bleeding through the screen. His desperation fuels the film’s dramatic tension: he’s both the villain and the victim – a regular man who deserves to be fought for, but who could also detonate a bomb at any moment.
However, Foster seems intent on undermining this tension at every opportunity, through atmosphere-depleting jokes and unbelievable character decisions. Indeed, thanks to Money Monster’s cheap gags, it’s unclear whether just who Foster’s disdain is really aimed at.

Rating: 2.5/5