Powerful ‘Money Monster’ feels like it was written yesterday
Hearing him say such things, you’d think you were watching a movie made in response to everything that has been happening so far in the 2016 campaign.
Lee is a cable TV personality, a fast-talking financial advisor clearly patterned on Jim Cramer, though a little more urbane.
Lee sings and dances, puts on gloves and shadow boxes, and advises people to buy stock.
He’s a money entertainer, with a show called “Money Monster,” but people actually listen to him.
The movie feels so propulsive and full of incident that it’s only later, thinking about it, that the realization dawns that the movie could easily have felt static.
The bulk of the running time is spent with two guys on a TV set, one berating the other.
The movie’s sense of motion derives from the script, with the Clooney character constantly having to devise stratagems, second by second, to talk the younger man down.
The sense of motion comes as well from the frequent cutting — from the set, to the booth, to the police, to the public’s reaction to tragicomedy playing out on live television.
[...] it’s just another well-made thriller, but there are things here — currents captured, ideas frozen in time — that might make it more interesting as the years pass.