MONEY MONSTER

Stars: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Caitriona Balfe, Dominic West, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Denham, Lenny Venito, Dennis Boutsikaris and Emily Meade.
Writer: Jamie Linden, Jim Kouf and Alan DiFiore
Director: Jodie Foster

Screening Out-of-Competition at 69^th Festival du Cannes; reviewed at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.

Rating: 4/5

When the elite directing talent decide to splash about in the B-movie genre pool, the best of them bring their serious film smarts along for a dip as well. Such was the case when Spike Lee made his heist thriller Inside Man, and when Martin Scorsese made his corrupt cop actioner The Departed, and when Michael Mann made the hitman thriller, Collateral.

And so it is with Jodie Foster and her high-concept hostage drama, Money Monster. A slick and satisfying vehicle for the capital-M/capital-S charisma of two of Hollywood’s most reliable Movie Stars, Foster’s fourth directorial effort also sufficiently ponders the hot-button topic of America’s financial/social divide to the extent that it feels just smart enough.

Having a ball as Lee Gates, the clownish ringleader of his own financial infotainment show Money Monster, is George Clooney (channelling with no filter at all CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host loudmouth Jim Cramer). The actor bounds around his ‘TV set’ set with a freewheeling physicality and ‘Master of the Universe’ brashness that is pure bravado. The only one with the cojones to rein him in is his director and long-time friend, Patty Fenn, played with a commanding sturdiness by Julia Roberts. The actress atones for the embarrassing dud Mother’s Day with one of her best performances, sidestepping the inherent clichés of the ‘TV director’ stereotype and favouring maturity and sturdy integrity over flustered and shrill.

Worlds are turned upside down when the desperate gun-toting, bomb-carrying everyman Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell) sneaks onto the studio floor and takes Lee hostage, the whole terrifying episode playing out on live television. Budwell’s life savings went down the toilet when a ‘glitch’ wiped $800million of Ibis Capital’s stock worth; he wants answers from CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) and not spin from an increasingly sympathetic PR maven, Diane (Caitriona Balfe).

It is the angry and desperate pleading of Kyle that will resonate with mainstream audiences, especially in a year when the most ruthless overlord of western corporate domination is challenging for the top job (Foster and her cast were called upon to address the film’s election year relevance in the post-screening press conference). Embodied with fierce gusto by O’Connell, Kyle is the angry, blue-collar guy whose betrayal by a broken ‘American Dream’ is changing the very fabric of the good ol’ US of A. That he identifies both the problem and the solution as being the fault of the media landscape allows Foster to attack both the irresponsibility of the faux-news network landscape and the corporate blight that the abuse of capitalism has left.

Her lensing to date has been on character-driven small-scale dramas (Little Man Tate, 1991; Home For The Holidays, 2005; The Beaver, 2001), but Foster excels at the thriller beats and action set-ups here. With her writing team of Jamie Linden, Jim Kouf and Alan DiFiore, she even offers subversive, stabs at the ‘hostage drama’ familiarity; one of the film’s biggest laughs comes when the cops convince Kyle’s pregnant girlfriend Molly (the scene-stealing Emily Meade) to talk sense to him, only to have her erupt in a tirade of horrible insults that merely drive him closer to the unthinkable.

The narrative starts to strain in the films mid-section, notably when some trope-y contrivances are required to push the plot forward (important personal documents are found way too easily; dubious hacker tech is awkwardly relied upon). It is full credit to Foster and her towering leads that pacing and packaging are strong enough to let such developments slide.

Although Money Monster (awkward title, but fitting on different levels) takes place in a busted contemporary world of rampant greed and ego, the production feels very much of a time when studios made stirring dramatic thrillers on mid-level budgets that addressed social and personal ills. Comparisons to Sydney Lumet’s classics Network and especially Dog Day Afternoon are inevitable, with elements of Broadcast News to boot. Ultimately, the tummy-tightening thrills and movie-star moxie on display echo louder than any social commentary or thematic depth. But that a flashy hostage thriller should dabble in such issues at all in this age of bland and safe studio slates is a welcome and wonderful surprise.