I’m a sucker for dramatic features that take place in the worlds of business and finance, especially if they’re based on true stories, since I figure I get education along with my entertainment. That credo, however, presupposes that the movie is actually entertaining and that I do learn something. It’s why I liked The Big Short, even though its comedy was a bit too broad at times. Adam McKay was careful to make all the technical explanations undergirding his version of the 2008 financial meltdown clear; but to tell the truth, I already had a thorough grounding in the topic from watching Charles Ferguson’s excellent 2010 documentary Inside Job. That may be why Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money, though as wry as McKay’s comedy, is less affecting for me. I didn’t pay much attention to the news reports about the film’s subject, the GameStop short squeeze of 2021, while it was happening, and thus came to the movie cold—most of the technical stuff about why it was such a big deal went over my head. Consequently, the conflict didn’t make much of an impression, even while I appreciated its theme of a bunch of underdogs making another bunch of fat cats anxious.

The underdogs in this case are retail day traders, average people who go on the internet and buy and sell stocks to augment their insufficient wages. These people trade in “dumb money,” according to big Wall Street traders, specifically hedge fund managers who know how to game the system to their own advantage even if it purposely hurts businesses and the folks who work for them. Paul Dano plays Keith Gill, a professional financial analyst who moonlights as a YouTube and Twitter star called Roaring Kitty dispensing investment advice to the hoi polloi. Gill’s catchphrase for tips is “I just like the stock,” which endears him to his fans because he comes across as someone who takes securities trading for what it’s supposed to be—beneficial for all involved—as opposed to what financial sharks take to heart, which is that it should be beneficial only for them and screw everybody else. The stock that Gill likes here is GameStop, a chain of video/computer game stores that no one on Wall Street thinks much of. Gill and his loyal coterie of small-time players, including a nurse (America Ferrera) and some smart but poor college students (Talia Ryder, Myha’la Herrold), take on the mantle of freedom fighters, while the rich know-it-alls, including New York Mets owner Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofiro) and Melvin Capital CEO Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), come across as cartoonishly evil Scrooge McDuck types. So when Gill champions GameStop to the utter hilarity of the hedge fund crowd and gets his followers on board, boosting the stock’s value through the stratosphere, all hell breaks loose on Wall Street as the shiny suits make it their mission to not only turn the spree to their advantage but destroy Gill in the process. 

One fact the movie can’t avoid is that it takes place during the height of the pandemic, and thus everything happens online. Gillespie can’t quite get the dramatic elements (not to mention the comic ones) to spark effectively when all the players are essentially interacting through computer monitors and iPhone screens. And while Dano is totally convincing as a righteous crusader for everyday Joes and Janes and the jokes at the expense of the monster money elite hit their marks with little effort, the entire logic behind the big fund managers’ grievance at being outmaneuvered by this kid with the ridiculous red headband and the dirty mouth didn’t land in the proper subsection of my brain, so I didn’t experience as much satisfaction or sense of disappointment as I should have when the script indicated that these were the reactions I should be feeling. In any case, capitalism wins in the end, and where’s the transgressive fun in that?

Opens Feb. 2 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978).

Dumb Money home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 BBP Antisocial LLC