Money Monster

There’s an unintentional similarity between the thriller Money Monster and the greedy Wall Street executives it seeks to satirize — both will gladly take your money while offering little payoff.

Indeed, there’s not much incentive for either monetary or emotional investment in this working-class revenge saga that wraps a critique of the contemporary financial system into a plot that’s both far-fetched and predictable.

The film unfolds on the set of the set of “Money Monster,” a television show whose flashy host is Lee Gates (George Clooney), a bombastic blowhard who dispenses free financial advice with his supposed stock-market expertise.

During a live broadcast, an intruder (Jack O’Connell) bursts into the studio and holds Gates hostage at gunpoint, claiming he’s a charlatan for recommending his viewers buy stock in a firm that subsequently lost $800 million essentially because of what it claimed was a computer glitch.

Through Gates, the unhinged man hopes to interact with the company’s globetrotting executive (Dominic West) in an effort to hold him accountable for massive shareholder losses. When the rapacious firm shows little compassion for the dire situation, Gates and his resourceful director (Julia Roberts) realize they need to start forcing the issue.

The film marks the return to the director’s chair for actress Jodie Foster (The Beaver), who stages some taut exchanges while smartly allowing her top-notch cast to take the spotlight. However, the actors are saddled with mediocre material, and none of the characters generates a sufficient rooting interest.

When it’s not talking money, the screenplay reserves some half-hearted jabs for opportunistic news coverage in an age of social-media sensationalism and desensitized short-attention spans, and how a story that’s captivating one minute can become boring the next.

The problem is that Money Monster fits that description itself. The concept is intriguing enough — with Gates obviously based on “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer, another hyperactive cable-news personality with a dubious reputation — but instead of ratcheting up the tension as the stakes increase, the film seems to ease off the gas pedal and turn soft when it matters most.

There are some mildly provocative points about the tenuous relationship between the economy and technology, and how the system is set up to screw over the middle class, yet the justification for such cynicism becomes muddled amid all the mayhem.

Rated R, 98 minutes.