I might call Money Monster a directing win, but I wouldn’t call it a treat to sit through. Set in a TV studio, the opportunity for the story to benefit from any number of writing techniques could hardly have been more promising yet the writers virtually spent no energy on it. They employ some tricks to avoid repeating themselves, sure, but I’m talking about smart plotting – going live on the air at a time that raises the chaos or the tension, using a camera as an additional POV, etc. (I could drag on about how even the characters don’t use the surroundings well, only it gets worse.) To make matters worse, the story starts off as a hostage situation, but where problem-solving should be is a criminal investigation that doesn’t contain any stumbling blocks for the characters or offer any guesswork for the audience. We’re merely watching things get fixed when, as we all know, the interesting stories are the ones that don’t go according to plan – witnesses vanish, money comes up short, doors lock on their own, etc. The only reason to see this film is to marvel at how dull it is. 99R

Elvis & Nixon