Dumb Money review by Bobby Blakey
There are so many movies that come along focusing on real life events that are just so hard to believe. When handled right they offer up some of the best stories to tell, but also tend to make people angry in relation to the events and how some of them unfolded. The latest, Dumb Money from I, Tonya and Cruella director Craig Gillespie and stars Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, and Seth Rogen. Could this film fully capture the essence of the stock market insanity, or will it not be a stock worth investing in?
Dumb Money follows the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (yes, the mall video game store) into the world’s hottest company. In the middle of everything is regular guy Keith Gill, who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock and posting about it. When his social posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich – until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.
I love these kinds of movies, but even more so when it is an event I lived through such as this one. It is made even more fun knowing it was literally just a few years ago and remember marveling at the story as it unfolded. Like most it made me look at the stock market for the first time and even purchased some stocks, sadly not any of the Game Stop. I was concerned going in the way it had been promoted that it might not actually work, but thankfully I was wrong. It not only takes this story and gets you invested but makes it fun along the way with the cast of characters that inhabit it all.
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The story brings in the real-life players as well as some new characters that are intended to represent all those that jumped into the play. They could have just focused on Gill and the other Wall Street people, and it would have been still interested but these other characters bring the public into the mix and give it a bigger effect instead of being so intimate and unrelatable. The entire cast is great here with some of them playing a lighter side and others heavier depending on their placement in history.
While this is very much an ensemble it all really hinges on the core of primarily Dano and to a not so lesser extent Rogen. Dano is great here bringing this genius everyman to life that is kind of silly yet offers up so much more than what you see on the surface. Rogen on the other side is more subtle than we are used to seeing him in his comedy roles and does a great job. He has been taking more and more roles like this and really establishing himself as so much more than the famous laugh.
Even being there and knowing how this all ultimately ends; this film is done well enough to make you still interested in the journey. It shrinks the timeline to be able to get it all in there so at times feels like it’s rushed or jumping around a bit, but it’s kind of necessary to do this in feature form. Once it is all said in done it makes sure to bring the proper ending complete with updates to the real cases, people and some of the actual videos that are recreated in the film.
I really enjoyed this one and hope it finds the audience it deserves. Decide for yourself and check out Dumb Money available now on digital, Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Home Entertainment.