Money Monster **

Dir:  Jodie Foster

Starring: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jack O’Connell, Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe

Money Monster had so much potential. Here was a movie which could have been a worthy fictional counterpart to The Big Short, the Oscar-nominated film which took an entertainingly forensic look at the global financial meltdown of 2008 and proved to be an acerbic takedown of a system that is loaded against the 99% and allows the 1% to get away scot-free. Not only that but it could also include in its crosshairs the unholy marriage of big money, corporate media and entertainment. It does do that but it really doesn’t know what kind of bullet to use and how to use it. As a result the messaging gets all kinds of muddled, the events get more and more preposterous, and the final result is a movie which works neither as entertainment nor as a hard-hitting polemic.

The movie is just not as smart as it thinks it is.

George Clooney plays a self-absorbed stock-market television guru who dispenses advice on his top-rated cable show who gets taken hostage live on-air by a disgruntled viewer (Jack O’Connell). Julia Roberts plays Clooney’s producer, providing advice to the frazzled host through his earpiece. Dominic West is the CEO of IBIS, the company whose share price has tanked due to huge losses attributed to a "computer glitch" while Caitriona Balfe (from television’s Outlander) is the IBIS’ communications directors. The basic setup is hard enough to swallow but you go along with it initially as Clooney is entertaining to watch and there a couple of surprising scenes such as the one where the wife of the hostage-taker is brought in to talk him down but the encounter just does not unfold as envisioned. However, once the movie takes itself out of the television studios and on to the streets of Manhattan suspension of disbelief becomes completely implausible with characters behaving as no people would and events taking place which could never happen. The mystery behind the IBIS computer glitch is also not really all that interesting either.

Clooney is an intelligent actor. Surely, he could have found a better script for himself and the same goes for Jodie Foster, the Oscar-winning actress turned director. And what Julia Roberts is doing here I can’t really say. This is the type of role usually reserved for well-regarded character actors but not leading ladies. Is this a sign of her waning box-office clout or did she just need an excuse to hang out with her pal, Clooney?

Cut to chase: This one isn’t on the money.

Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising **

Dir:  Nick Stoller

I was in the minority in my dislike of the first Neighbours movie. The critics generally liked it and the movie made tons of money at the box-office. So we get the inevitable sequel as beleaguered young parents Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne take on yet another raucous college Greek house, this time a sorority instead of a fraternity. While I found myself surprisingly somewhat amused by the sequel’s first twenty minutes or so, Sorority Rising soon descended into the same kind of crude, offensive "humour" which filled the first movie and which wasn’t funny in the least. The movie tries to have its cake and eat it too by its token attempt at female empowerment but fails in that department too by having the girls behave just as stupidly, crassly, and unpleasantly as the male counterparts. Skip this one.

Cut to chase: More like franchise falling

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Twitter: @KhusroMumtaz

* Not on your life ** Hardly worth the bother **  ½ Okay for a slow afternoon only *** Good enough for a look see ***½ Recommended viewing **** Don’t miss it **** ½ Almost perfect ***** Perfection