Money Monster review: Jodie Foster fires hostage drama our way via the Cannes Film Festival, where it plays out-of-competition.
The film marks Foster’s fiest feature directing project in five years/ Here’s our Money Monster review from the Cannes Film Festival 2016.
Money Monster review
Jodie Foster returns to the director’s chair for the fourth time for Money Monster, a film that also caught the eye of the Cannes selection committee, where the film plays out of competition.
George Clooney leads a fairly starry cast as influential Wall Street TV anchor Lee Gates, an animated character who features on a nighty live show on fictional broadcaster FNN, which we’re assuming stands for Financial News Network. Behind the scenes is Gates’ long-serving, but much suffering director Patty Fenn, who is about to head ‘over the road’ to a rival TV firm – she just hasn’t told Gates yet. Gates’ and Fenn’s world is about to change quite suddenly when faux delivery boy Kyle Budwell (an on-form Jack O’Connell) enters their lives. After sneaking into the TV station with a mystery package, Budwell takes Gates hostage live on air, strapsa jacket full of explosives to his and demands to known why a recent investment, recommended on Gates’ show went horribly south.
Money Monster review
Foster surprises with her choice of subject matter with Money Monster, a fairly mainstream movie quite different from her previous helming projects, which have included her impressive debut Little Man Tate, and her last effort, The Beaver with Mel Gibson, which was released five years ago hardly setting the world alight. After a successful stint on television directing episodes of Orange Is The New Black, Foster’s latest is also her most ambitious. The high-concept action-drama is initially contained with in the confines of Gates’ hi-tech studio environment, which is where the film perhaps performs at its best. Using footage from the actual cameras inside the studio as well as steadicam and other fancy shots in addition, Foster manages to make every scene as interesting as the last, something that is lost a little when the inevitable happens and the action is taken outside.
Money Monster review
Clooney is perfectly fine as our leading man, the sleazy TV anchor slowly revealing his flaws and inner demons as the narrative progresses, and Julia Roberts does just enough in an equally confined role staring at a TV monitor for 90% of her screen time, and hardly interacting with a human being for most of that. It is Jack O’Connell who has everything to prove against the Hollywood heavyweights stood both in front and behind the camera, and he does so superbly by putting in copious amounts of raw energy and passion into the role that not only makes it believable, but definitely out-shines the polished pros of his surrounding peers. Dominic West also appears from the sidelines, his corporate slime-ball not quite as sleazy or feeble as we’d want, but definitely above average in the material he’s given. The same can be said for Breaking Bad bad guy Giancarlo Esposito‘s shouty police captain who barks in his lines every couple of scenes, though hardly making an impact on proceedings in the small amount of screen-time he’s given.
Full of metaphors, which are rubbed right in your face, particularly as we reach the climactic face-off, Money Monster is an mostly an engaging watch, and pretty much does what it says on the tin. Like most rolling TV news – it’s engrossing enough when you’re watching, but hardly seems relevant when looking back.
Money Monster review by Paul Heath at the Cannes Film Festival, 2016.
Money Monster is released in the U.K. on May 27th 2016, and in the U.S. on May 13th, 2016.
Catch all of our Cannes ’16 coverage here
