It's not money itself that lies at the heart of most modern evil, but the love of it. So says the Bible; so too says The Money Monster, Jodie Foster's star-studded action drama about fast finance and the destruction it can cause to regular people.
George Clooney is Lee Gates, the hard-to-like host of a successful TV show which marries trashy values and serious trading advice into a sort of financial Top Gear. He's been unwittingly complicit in helping his viewers buy big on a stock that then mysteriously crashed, meaning than thousands of ordinary people lost their savings or inheritances following his advice. One of them, Kyle Budwell (emerging Brit Jack O'Connell) takes matters into his own hands, storming the set as Gates is mid-broadcast and strapping him into a bomb vest that will explode if Budwell's finger leaves the trigger. Within moments, the hostage situation is being watched live around the world by millions, as producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) is forced to continue broadcasting a very different kind of show.
It's an intriguing setup, enhanced by the film's commitment to real-time storytelling. Gates wants answers, beyond the usual financial PR, as to where his money and his hopes for the future have apparently evaporated to, and as he articulates, his are the questions of many others.
In fact, they're the real-life questions of millions of Americans who've been wounded by the recent activities and failings of Wall Street while bankers and their instutions have apparently continued to flourish. Like a gun-toting companion piece to Oscar winner The Big Short, Foster's film is a timely prod – especially in an election year – on the subject of how super rich companies and their employees seem to enjoy a life above the recession, and perhaps also the law.
A recent Federal Reserve Board survey found that nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. It's a shocking statistic, and a sobering reminder that while big corporations might act like the Western World is back into a time of economic boom, the average US citizen is still firmly in the grip of financial uncertainty. That context makes The Money Monster a fascinating discussion starter, because despite its Hollywood action movie values, it dares to give the common person a voice to ask: how has this been allowed to happen so far, and should it continue? Even The Big Short, which moralised pretty hard at times, ended up too cynically to do that.
Despite the sort of (incredibly) strong language that's likely to send a Christian audience running, certainly in the US, the film carries a challenge to wider society that the church would do well to pick up on. If the answer isn't to run in with a gun and a bomb vest (and it isn't), then how do we challenge a system that allows and even enables smart, morally-ambiguous opportunists to become devastatingly rich while the rest of society suffers? As guardians not just of a moral code, but a philosophical idea which sees everyone looking out for everyone else and no-one left behind, shouldn't the Church be much more of a voice on this issue?
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby might have vowed to take on the payday loan lenders, but for the most part, the Church is complicit in exactly the sort of system at which The Money Monster takes aim. Indeed, there are even shows on international Christian television which closely resemble Clooney's fictional programme, aimed at helping Christian viewers to 'become better stewards' and other code words for building up their treasures outside of heaven. So are we part of the fight against the real 'monster' of the film's title, or are we secretly rooting for it?
It's had a few sniffy reviews elsewhere, but for me The Money Monster is successful because it remains consistently entertaining and tense throughout its relatively brief runtime, and still manages to raise some vitally important themes. It's no accident that in one of the final shots, a television camera is left running, with the lens pointing directly at the screen: at us. It's as if the film is asking, so now, what are you going to do about it? To a Church so often side-tracked by smaller concerns, I think it's a pertinent challenge.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders
