If Money Monster was a stock you owned, right now I’d be yelling at you to “sell! Sell!” The film tries to sell itself as both a film of social criticism and a hostage thriller. Unfortunately, as a film of social criticism, it never seems to get much more specific than “rich=bad” and “poor (and in this case, stupid) =good”; and as a thriller, it never gets very thrilling.

George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the buffoonish host of a cable news money show who values cheezy showmanship over the accuracy of his stock tips. During a live show, Kyle Budwell (played by Jack O’Connell) sneaks on set and takes Clooney hostage telling him that even though his job only pays $14 an hour, he took the $60,000 that he inherited after his mother’s recent death and invested it all in the IBIS corporation, based on one of Gates’s tips. (See the stupidity I was talking about?) The stock tanked, Kyle lost all his money, and now wants…well, it’s hard to tell what he wants. Gates offers to reimburse him from his personal funds, but Kyle instead wants Gates and IBIS CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West) to offer him an apology. Huh? Maybe it’s just me but I found it difficult to believe that someone would put themselves into what is certainly going to be a hostage situation (which never end well for the hostage-taker) over $60K that they didn’t even have a couple of weeks before. And then, when offered the money, says, “nah. I’d rather just hear an ‘I’m sorry.’” And did I mention that Kyle is going to be a dad, too? Of course, the real purpose of all of this is to discover that there’s something a bit hinkey about the plummeting of the stock. As the mathematician involved in creating the algorithm for the trading says, “it’s a mathematical impossibility that it would drop that much. There has to be human involvement.” So everybody take a second and shout out who you think that bad guy who fixed the trade is. Done? Yes, of course you’re right—it’s the greedy CEO because nothing in this film is even slightly surprising (except for maybe the reaction from Kyle’s pregnant girlfriend when the police get her on camera to try to talk him down). This isn’t a spoiler, either, because it’s fairly obvious that it’s him from the get-go.

On the thriller side of things, there’s really nothing here that we either haven’t seen before, or can’t see coming. We never really feel scared for Gates’s life, we never really see much motivation for Kyle (again, outside of his own stupidity), and we never really get to know anything about the bad guy CEO, other than…you know, he’s greedy and stuff. Of course, let’s face it—so is Kyle. He wanted a quick payday, too. Even the resolution seems to be unsupported, dramatically, by all that comes before it. Oh, and I almost forgot Julia Roberts! She plays Gates’s producer, and although she’s more or less stuck in the control booth, she manages to persuade Gates (through an earpiece) to go from a representation of the excesses of Wall Street to a man of the people, out to help the little guy, even though that little guy has  a gun to his head, and has fitted him with a bomb vest.

I probably sound a little harsh in my criticism of the film. But there’s a lot of talent involved here, with Jodie Foster directing, and Clooney and Roberts starring, and it just felt like they walked through it. It felt like a waste of time and money and talent, and poor Jack O’Connell was the only one who was really working to sell it. And it was a tough sell. IMDB has it at (an inexplicable) 6.8. I am buying low on this one: a 4.5 from me. In the last scene, the movie’s public, after watching the events unfold live on television, almost immediately forget about them and go back to their foosball games, etc. I have a feeling you’ll do the same with this film. (running time 1:38)