Best movie ever!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This movie not only indicts the corrupt practices of stock market companies but also critiques TV companies who, by dumbing down financial advice shows, can induce gullible or ill-informed people into making disastrous investments. It illustrates how investors who can least afford to lose their money, are often the greatest victims and roundly ridicules the absurd kind of spin that's often used by PR people to try to defend the indefensible.The good news is that all of this is done in the context of a fast-moving and highly-entertaining hostage drama that's compelling to watch and never gets too heavy-handed. It's well-written, well-acted and features an interesting group of characters who are all changed in various ways by what they experience.Fast-talking Lee Gates (George Clooney) is the host of a cable TV show in which he advises his viewers on all matters relating to their finances. His style of presentation relies on a lot of showbiz-style razzmatazz and a considerable amount of ad-libbing which is a continuous source of annoyance to his long-suffering director, Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts). In his latest show, he's due to interview the CEO of a investment company called "IBIS Clear Capital" whose stock mysteriously collapsed and left its investors with losses that amounted to $800 million. After being informed that Walt Camby (Dominic West) won't be available to interview because he's had to fly to Geneva at short notice for a business meeting, Lee has to make some last-minute adjustments to his show.A little while after the show has started, a delivery man walks onto the set, pulls out a gun and orders Lee to put on a vest that he says is filled with explosives. Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) had invested in the IBIS stock which Lee had recommended to his viewers and had lost $60,000 which had been the entire sum left to him by his late mother and was all the money he possessed. He's furious and wants to know why Lee's advice was so wrong and why IBIS had lost so much money so quickly. He wants straight answers and is prepared to blow everyone up if he doesn't get them.As the hostage situation continues, the ultra-cool Patty Fenn who had originally pulled the plug on the show puts it back on air at the insistence of Kyle and prompts Lee through his earpiece on the right things to say to avoid provoking his captor. In an effort to get the answers that Kyle wants. Patty and Lee manage to get IBIS Chief Communications Officer, Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe), on the show and she claims that the company's losses were attributable a glitch in one of their trading algorithms. Not only does this not convince Kyle but it also sounds less than credible to Lester who then embarks on the course of action that ultimately leads to the real reason being uncovered."Money Monster" is enjoyable to watch because it tells a topical story and features content about big companies and PR spin that chimes strongly with the kind of views that are most commonly expressed by members of the general public. George Clooney and Julia Roberts excel in making the changes their characters go through seem perfectly understandable and Jack O'Connell, in a strong performance, expresses Kyle's anger, desperation and frustration at being financially ruined by the actions of cynical individuals who are not only infinitely more powerful than him but also seemingly don't have to take any responsibility for the misery that they cause to others. Ultimately, this is a fine movie that impresses by simultaneously entertaining and providing food for thought.

This was an easy 8 until the last 5 minutes of the film where all the good work of the last 90 minutes was just utterly fumbled.Shame with such a great cast that the script just kind of fell apart at the pivotal point where a really good point about where our world is at with capitalism just crumbled to mush.

Classic Hollywood movie. I only put one star for my favorite actor Jack O'Connell that was great in his small role. This movie show us three specific things: people of television and media are good, police is good, and everyday life will continue to flow even if the system is entirely corrupted. I felt all the time that the film has not a bright or correct message about society or political issues. Also some Illuminati signs may indicate something about people on power, money and our global future. In the end, the "bad" guy said he was wrong, and the "good" guy took the shot.

George Clooney plays one of those financial news network know-it-alls, rolling up his sleeves and getting to work upping his predictions about some stocks and damning others. He's self centered and petty. He wears costumes and does the macarena at the introduction to his show, which is shot on a New York set full of elaborate displays of electronic junk. Julia Roberts, the show's director, is in the control room behind a glass panel, providing the voice in his ear. Then, during one routine but colorful show, Jack O'Connell sneaks onto the set, holds everyone at gunpoint and makes Clooney don an explosive vest. O'Connell, an ordinary working stiff from Queens, has lost his life saving investing in a stock that Clooney had pimped and that had then dropped like a plumb line, just like mine always do. O'Connell angrily queries Clooney about the $800 million lost in one day by Ibis Corporation. Well, the situation is tense, I can tell you.The technology was sometimes over my head. There were TV cameras and monitors all over the place and prominent use was made of smart phone like Blackberries and Blueberries and everybody is texting one another and shouting into microphones and making sure their earplugs were properly seated in the external auditory canals and I don't know what all. This sometimes induced a confused state of consciousness but didn't interfere with the essence of the plot. The CEO of Ibis had used a manual override on the algorithm (or "algo") and sneakily caused the stock to drop after shorting it. Something like that, anyway. Clooney, having just found this out, accuses the CEO of fraud. But is it? It sounds more like larceny of some sort, or maybe embezzlement. No matter.It was directed by Jodie Foster, who is smart and who knows her way around cameras. She does a decent enough job but the details of the script are torturous and sometimes you can get lost in them. Who's shouting to whom around here? And how in the name of Bog could she have let O'Connell get away with waving that pistol around so wildly -- and holding it sideways, something that became a cliché many years ago. It made me wince.Clooney is fine, as usual. He's a pretty good actor. There are a plethora of stars that play action scenes impassively, but when Clooney is batted around the set or has a pistol shoved in his face he looks genuinely scared. Have you ever seen (or imagined) Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone look truly scared? No? I thought not. The best they can do when threatened with lethal force is look mildly annoyed.Julia Roberts is Julia Roberts, looking no less good without ten layers of iridescent make up. Caitriona Balfe is just fine as Ibis's PR person, formally known as a chief communications officer. She's very sexy and she's Irish. But I felt sorry for the aggrieved Jack O'Connell. He overacts wildly, uses a fake New York City accent (he's Irish too), and has some sort of speech impediment, causing him to deliver a pale simulacrum of his most passionate lines. At the same time, he certainly LOOKS the part of the washed out urban loser.All together, not a bad movie but not a particularly well-done movie either -- not even a glimpse of Maria Bartiromo. Better to have to sit through "Money Monster" than to have invested in Lucent Technology.