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Dumb Money
An absolutely insane true story has slickly been brought to the screen with stylish direction and an impressive ensemble cast in a 2023 docudrama called Dumb Money that was, at times, hard to follow, but never boring.
This is the story of a Wall Street blogger named Keith Gill (Paul Dano) who has been guiding his 412 follows to a stock called Gamestop, but has also attracted the attention of a couple of hedge funders with deep pockets, though some of Gill's followers have less than $200 to invest but believe in Gill. It's not long before we see the price of Gamestop leap from $20 a share to $350 a share, putting a lot of money in people's hands who should have sold at this point, but the stock begins to drop as quickly as it rose, putting Gill and a whole lot of other people in very hot water.
The richly complex screenplay is from the writers of The Social Network and Orange is the New Black and requires complete attention which doesn't really pay off, but what it does is endear the viewer to a handful of those 412 followers, including a nurse and single mom, an electronics store employee, and a pair of lesbian college students, who really don't have the money to be investing money in the stock market,. but their blind worship of this Keith Gill has them following him down a path that leads Gill to a subpoena from the US congress.
I had a difficult time following exactly what was going on as this film moved to its halfway point. The connection between what these regular Joes were doing with their money and what these hedge funders were doing became muddy, but its sizzle to an emotionally charged David VS Goliath story kept the film watchable. Was especially moved by everything that happened in the story affected Keith's relationship with his brother, Kevin (Pete Davidson).
The music video style direction by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) is a little distracting, but it's this cast that really makes this movie worth watching. Backing up Dano and Davidson are Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, America Ferrera, Vincent D'Onofrio, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, Kate Burton, and Clancy Brown, working together as an ensemble serving the piece. The story was a bit confusing, but that cast made it worth wading through.
An absolutely insane true story has slickly been brought to the screen with stylish direction and an impressive ensemble cast in a 2023 docudrama called Dumb Money that was, at times, hard to follow, but never boring.
This is the story of a Wall Street blogger named Keith Gill (Paul Dano) who has been guiding his 412 follows to a stock called Gamestop, but has also attracted the attention of a couple of hedge funders with deep pockets, though some of Gill's followers have less than $200 to invest but believe in Gill. It's not long before we see the price of Gamestop leap from $20 a share to $350 a share, putting a lot of money in people's hands who should have sold at this point, but the stock begins to drop as quickly as it rose, putting Gill and a whole lot of other people in very hot water.
The richly complex screenplay is from the writers of The Social Network and Orange is the New Black and requires complete attention which doesn't really pay off, but what it does is endear the viewer to a handful of those 412 followers, including a nurse and single mom, an electronics store employee, and a pair of lesbian college students, who really don't have the money to be investing money in the stock market,. but their blind worship of this Keith Gill has them following him down a path that leads Gill to a subpoena from the US congress.
I had a difficult time following exactly what was going on as this film moved to its halfway point. The connection between what these regular Joes were doing with their money and what these hedge funders were doing became muddy, but its sizzle to an emotionally charged David VS Goliath story kept the film watchable. Was especially moved by everything that happened in the story affected Keith's relationship with his brother, Kevin (Pete Davidson).
The music video style direction by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) is a little distracting, but it's this cast that really makes this movie worth watching. Backing up Dano and Davidson are Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, America Ferrera, Vincent D'Onofrio, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, Kate Burton, and Clancy Brown, working together as an ensemble serving the piece. The story was a bit confusing, but that cast made it worth wading through.