Money Monster

Jodie Foster has once again taken to directing with her fourth feature film Money Monster. A part-comedy, part-drama starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, this financial thriller promises a lot, but doesn’t necessarily deliver.

Lee Gates (George Clooney) stars as the financial guru of cable television, on his show ‘Money Monster’. During a live filming, his show is ambushed by Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), who holds the studio at gunpoint, demanding that they don’t cut the live feed. Lee is strapped into an explosive vest as Kyle demands to know why IBIS Clear Capital, a company that Lee had personally recommended as “safer than your savings account”, had just lost $800 million in stock value due to a “glitch” in its trading algorithm. In what will surely be the worst day of show director Patty Fenn’s (Julia Roberts) professional career, those inside the studio struggle to take control of the situation and meet Kyle’s demands before he sets off the vest.

The film opens with a sequence that brings together the intense critiques of journalism and media from films like The China Syndrome and Network, with the cha-ching of recent financial satire films The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short. As such it’s difficult from the get-go to see how Money Monster is going to find its own path. The film effectively has two interweaved acts; one following the events that take place in the studio, and one on the reactive events that occur outside. The former scenes work really well, there’s a palpable tension as Patty tries to use her directorial skills to control the situation, where Lee prefers to cut through it with his blunt sarcasm and asides. However as soon as we cut away to the exterior focus, the manipulative side of the film rears its ugly head and starts to throw all sorts of moral messages at us.

The film pleads with us to pick an antagonist; is it the guy with the gun, Kyle? Is it the arrogant opportunist, Lee? Is it Wall Street? It’s trying to find a black and white answer to a very murky question. As the film rolls on, we’re placed in a tense race to either see the rapidly escalating situation put under control, or find out who’s responsible for the system ‘glitch' - the answer to which reveals itself too soon thanks to some blatantly-foreshadowing dialogue: ’I got you some chocolate….from Switzerland’ *dun dun duuuuun*.

A more interesting premise, which thankfully doesn’t get put under the moral magnifying glass like so much of Money Monster, is the battle to humanise Lee Gates in the ninety-minute running time, a man so initially out of touch with the world that he has a gold-embroidered dancing troupe to help him announce the stocks to keep an eye on...that’s showbiz folks. It’s very easy to place all the blame for Kyle’s situation on Lee, and it’s certainly partly the fault of his over-the-top spruiking, but as more is revealed and we get a better idea of the bigger picture, Lee starts to look less devious, and more like a charming village idiot, who actually takes some responsibility for his actions. Although to be fair that could be more to do with George Clooney’s performance, I hear he’s irresistible.

We also get a well-developed performance from Julia Roberts, who I must admit I’ve struggled to watch in many previous roles. Here however, she has just the right amount of sass to shoot down Lee’s remarks, a nuanced understanding of how to approach the situation and the occasional hint that, like everybody else in the studio, she’s quaking in her boots. Jack O’Connell also steps up his game from his performance in Angelina Jolie’s Unwatchable Unbroken and we get the invaluable pleasure to see Giancarlo Esposito on screen again, in what sadly becomes a rather banal cop role. What’s more, for the roles outside of the studio, the underwhelmment (which should definitely be a word) is par for the course. As soon as we leave the tense studio environment, be it for a quick cutaway or for the path that the story takes, the film becomes too focused on delivering a message, and loses the satirical-thriller element that sets it apart from whatever else is playing this weekend.

Money Monster does well to recognise its strengths, namely Clooney, Roberts and the satire/thriller blend. However, all too often it oversteps its bounds and starts to preach its message without the finesse required, or the content to back it up.

Unbroken

Angelina Jolie aims to impress with her second stint at directing (the first being the 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey), Unbroken, a biographical film about U.S Olympic athlete and WWII veteran Luis Zamperini. Zamperini's story is certainly epic in scope, but Jolie's talent behind the camera is yet to be seen.

Louis "Louie" Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) grew up a rebellious troublemaker. His brother Peter (Alex Russell) saw that Louie had a talent for running and helped to train him as an athlete. Zamperini eventually makes it to the 1939 Olympic games in Berlin, where his success highlights his strong potential. However when war breaks out, Louie becomes a bombardier in the U.S Air Force where his plane is eventually shot down.

After surviving at sea for months on end with his crew mates, Russell (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock), they are captured by the Japanese and sent to a prisoner of war camp, where Zamperini encounters a vicious guard, Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe (Miyavi).

I'll be honest, I had a lot of issues with this film, and was left a little disappointed. For a script that was, in part, written by the Coen Brothers, it's decidedly underwhelming. The dialogue is at points clichéd, and often dull, for instance, one of the most evocative lines is literally Zamperini recounting a recipe. There's also its timing. At a little over two hours, it's certainly not long compared to other war features, yet it felt quite drawn out. Split into three parts, it moves along smoothly enough but at a slow rate, and some times almost carbon-copying whole sequences from similar movies such as Life of Pi and The Bridge on the River Kwai. It may be telling a true story but it should be able to differentiate itself in the presentation of that story. Though that's not to say that some scenes don't work quite well, there are certainly some powerful moments throughout, but they stand out like a sore thumb.

None of this is helped by the fact that O'Connell's performance as Zamperini feels somewhat forced. He's by no means terrible, but he wasn't particularly convincing, and this made it difficult for me to understand or relate with the character, and subsequently the story started to lose my attention. Japanese singer Miyavi is decent as the brutal Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe, a POW guard that abuses Zamperini, though he doesn't have the same screen presence as his filmic equivalent, the ruthless Colonel Saito in Bridge on the River Kwai, although that was a fictional character. Both Fin Wittrock and Domhnall Gleeson are great as Zamperini's lost companions.

Considering that epic DP Roger Deakins, long-term collaborator with the Coen Bros, was involved with Unbroken, it's visually quite ordinary. Much of the film has been colourised to the bland "Summer Blockbuster" look that favours oranges and subsequently makes most people appear like Oompa Loompas. The plane sequences in the first act are very obviously CGI, which wouldn't normally bother me but for fairly straightforward shots, it would seem like some practical effects/model work would be much more effective here. There are also some weird issues throughout, such as the fact that Zamperini appears to have styled a goatee in his months at sea. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't think that grooming would be their primary concern in that situation.

I always admire the drive to make a biopic, especially one as ambitious as this, but unfortunately many of the issues here are indicative of textbook directing from Jolie, not terrible, just nothing special. The musical score did impress me and there were a few standout scenes, but generally this just fell flat. I have no doubt that Zamperini's story is one that should be told, but this film doesn't do it justice.