Taglines: On the air. Out of time.
Flamboyant television financial expert Lee Gates is in the midst of the latest edition of his show, Money Monster. Less than 24 hours earlier, IBIS Clear Capital’s stock inexplicably cratered, apparently due to a glitch in a trading algorithm, costing investors $800 million. Lee planned to have IBIS CEO Walt Camby appear for an interview about the crash, but Camby unexpectedly left for a business trip to Geneva.
Midway through the show, a deliveryman wanders onto the set, pulls a gun and takes Lee hostage, forcing him to put on a vest laden with explosives. He is Kyle Budwell, who invested $60,000—his entire life savings—in IBIS after Lee endorsed the company on the show. Kyle was wiped out along with the other investors. Unless he gets some answers, he will blow up Lee before killing himself. Once police are notified, they discover that the receiver to the bomb’s vest is located over Lee’s kidney. The only way to destroy the receiver—and with it, Kyle’s leverage—is to shoot Lee and hope he survives.
With the help of longtime director Patty Fenn, Lee tries to calm Kyle and find Camby for him, though Kyle is not satisfied when both Lee and IBIS chief communications officer Diane Lester offer to compensate him for his financial loss. He also is not satisfied by Diane’s insistence that the algorithm is to blame. Diane is not satisfied by her own explanation, either, and defies colleagues to contact a programmer who created the algorithm, Won Joon. Reached in Seoul, Joon insists that an algorithm could not take such a large, lopsided position unless someone meddled with it.
Money Monster is a 2016 American thriller film directed by Jodie Foster and written by Alan Di Fiore, Jim Kouf and Jamie Linden. The film stars George Clooney (who also co-produced) as Lee Gates, a TV personality who advises his audience on commerce and Wall Street, and who is forcefully interrogated by Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), a grief-stricken bankrupt viewer who lost his money after a previous tip; the film also stars Julia Roberts, Giancarlo Esposito, Dominic West and Caitriona Balfe.
Money Monster
Directed by: Jodie Foster
Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Denham
Screenplay by: Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore
Production Design by: Kevin Thompson
Cinematography by: Matthew Libatique
Film Editing by: Matt Chesse
Costume Design by: Susan Lyall
Set Decoration by: Lydia Marks
Art Direction by: Deborah Jensen
Music by: Dominic Lewis
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, some sexuality and brief violence.
Studio: Sony Pictures
Release Date: may 13, 2016
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