Jeff Lubeck

A movie with George Clooney and Julia Roberts as the principle actors is certain to please on some basic front.  Clooney and Roberts star in Money Monster and they deliver with a natural chemistry that would be expected given they have been friends outside of work for 15 years, and have worked together successfully on four films (Oceans series and Confessions of A Dangerous Mind).

Combine Clooney, Roberts and an interesting premise and you have Money Monster in a nutshell.  Move past 30 minutes of viewing and Money Monster – while not failing – starts to move from being categorized as a clever film with a good cast to an okay film with a good cast.

Roberts and Clooney are spot on in good roles – highly believable. Jack O’Connell (Unbroken) playing the bad-guy and victim is additive to the good performance in a good role status for Money Monster.

As for the rest of Money Monster; good actors playing pretty typical roles working with a substandard script. You will easily recognize Dominic West (Hannibal Rising, 300, 28 Days), Caitriona Balfe (Super 8, Outlander), Giancarlo Esposito (Fresh, The Usual Suspects) and Christopher Denham (Argo, Shutter Island).  These are good actors. Unfortunately their actions and lines feel as if screenwriters used something such as AutoPilotScript for the the iPhone to complete the remainder of the screenplay.

Money Monster is not certain money or a monster film.  However it is a decent feature film, and if you have a scheduled date night or the extra time will be worth a trip to the movie theater.

Surely, a film with the poorest of screenplays and direction can be overcome and saved by a male cast of Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kostner, Gary Oldmann, and Ryan Reynolds and bookend by Gal Godot and Antje Traue as the female leads.  Surely!

Well… no they cannot and don’t call me Shirley.

Criminal is as bad a (professionally funded mainstream) movie as has been put into distribution in recent memory.  The title of the film is highly appropriate but for unintended reasons – for what it forces the viewer to endure.  There is almost nothing in Criminal that is worthy of our time and dollars – except the child.  And we should all feel bad for little Lara DeCaro as she will have to live the rest of her life knowing people can tie her back to acting in this film.

Another title for this film could have been Bad Derivative.  Criminal utilizes (to new lows) the lamest components from the worst of the poorly produced Hollywood Knockoff films. For example, the good ole’ Operation Room: it is filled with 6.47 million high definition screens and the same number of staff who are led every view minutes by Gary Oldman’s character walking in and shouting “Okay people listen up.”  As you have come to expect, the 6.47 million high definition screens and staff are able to track everything real-time – I mean everything.  I swear that on one of the screens The Bad Guy is throwing out the Opening Day pitch for The Chicago Cubs before returning to his secret lair.  Oh, wait a moment, I have to stand corrected. The screens and the trackers always seem to miss things of actual importance – not because the technology and people fail – but because of the huge gap in the plot that is so obvious it can be seen from outer-space.