Money Monster Blu-ray Review

• Actors: Emily Meade, Caitriona Balfe, Christopher Denham, Giancarlo Esposito, Lenny Venito
• Director: Jodie Foster
• Producers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Lara Alameddine, Daniel Dubiecki
• Format: AC-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: French, Portuguese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Cantonese, Thai, Spanish, English
• Dubbed: Portuguese, French, Thai, Spanish
• Audio Description: English
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated:
  R 
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• Release Date: September 6, 2016
• Digital Copy Expiration Date: December 31, 2019
• Run Time: 99 minutes

        Money Monster is a movie that works a bit too sufficiently within the larger money-making system of the filmmaking business for any commentary on the shallowness of cable news to carry any righteous anger. While the film is efficiently made with a talented cast and crew, it lacks the soul and the passion that the subject matter deserves. Ultimately, this ends up resembling an episode to any number of police procedural television shows, with a star-studded cast to distract from the derivative qualities of the screenplay. This may have been less disappointing had the message of the film carried less relevance to our times.

         George Clooney stars as an over-the-top TV personality, Lee Gates, who hosts a show giving financial advice about the stock market. The film takes place in real time during the final evening Lee is broadcasting a show with his longtime producer, Patty (Julia Roberts). This also happens to be the night that a young man named Kyle (Jack O’Connell) decides to hijack the taping, holding Lee hostage on live television. Kyle lost his savings taking bad financial advice from the show, and wants all responsible to be held accountable for the world to see, including the CEO (Dominic West) of the company he invested in.

        The basic set-up had me believing that the focus of the narrative would be on the social injustices carried out against the working class, but instead it quickly becomes a routine hostage suspense film. Watching this cast work together is never boring, but the relevance of the story is dismissed for easy villains to blame and a situation that removes itself from reality for a neat resolution. Money Monster is polished and entirely watchable, while never raising the pulses or questions that it should. At the very least, this offered adults something to watch in theaters this summer that didn’t have to do with comic books or require 3D glasses to fully appreciate.

        The Blu-ray release comes with a Digital HD copy of the film, though no DVD. The extras on the disc include a few featurettes, some deleted scenes, and a music video. The best of the featurettes is an “Analysis of a Scene,” though there is also one that focuses on the star power of George Clooney.

Entertainment Value: 6.5/10

Quality of Filmmaking: 7/10

Historical Significance:  5/10

Special Features: 6.5/10