★★★½
“I identical to the inventory.” This straightforward, throwaway line turns into the rallying cry for a contemporary class battle pitting low-earning millennials and zoomers in opposition to the one % on this biographical drama by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Actual Lady, Cruella). By a mixture of trustworthy retelling and thinly veiled artistic license, Dumb Cash succeeds in relaying a strong message, even when it typically wears out its welcome in the midst of doing so.
The movie opens with hedge fund government Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) studying that GameStop’s shares (GME) are rising at an unprecedented charge. As a result of he and his colleagues have been shorting these shares for years, GME’s success may imply chapter for Plotkin’s firm.
Monetary analyst Keith Gill, recognized on YouTube as Roaring Kitty (Paul Dano), is initially the one one who believes Wall Road is undervaluing GME. Nevertheless, his success at drawing the eye of a single Reddit thread conjures up over 8 million informal retail buyers to observe his instance. Their objective, which by no means seems to be absolutely shared by Kitty himself, is to squeeze out the hedge funds so the little man can win.
Apparently, the supposed villains of the movie by no means seem to do a lot mistaken. The movie’s closest approximation to “dangerous guys” are Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan), who runs the buying and selling platform many Redditors are utilizing to purchase GME, and Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), who runs one of many hedge funds being threatened by the squeeze. Their most villainous act includes a scheme to dam the retail merchants from shopping for, but their solely motivation is to guard what they’ve amidst a category battle they by no means began. They aren’t truly attempting to carry the little man down.
In the meantime, the movie doesn’t draw back from the prevalence of toxicity on social media, as most of the Redditors featured aren’t proven as attempting to convey down the large guys. They don’t know that Plotkin is a household man or that fellow hedge fund supervisor Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio) is the proud and loving proprietor of a gargantuan pig. Jennifer (America Ferrera) simply is aware of that she works laborious on the hospital in the course of a pandemic whereas making too little to afford her son’s braces. Of the 4 aspect characters adopted all through the film, she makes the strongest case for the squeeze. She isn’t indignant as a result of she claims to know nothing concerning the one % as people. She’s indignant at a system that enables them to profit from company bailouts whereas leaving a single mom to determine issues out for their very own.
Whereas solely Jennifer states this ethical straight, the movie makes use of some wonderful story units to indicate the retailers’ solidarity whereas concurrently highlighting their sense of isolation. When issues are going nicely, they’re all proven singing alongside to the movie’s soundtrack on the identical time. But when Gill is struggling in opposition to the reminiscence of his late sister, the movie cuts eerily to silent streets and subways that may have been packed shoulder-to-shoulder only a 12 months prior. It’s a superb use of soundtrack. Just one second, by which Gill’s character is launched to the theme of Cardi B’s “WAP,” stands out as not making a lot contextual sense.
Regardless of the movie’s many successes, one main downside all however ensures that almost all moviegoers gained’t be heading again for repeat viewings. At merely 104 minutes, no movie ought to really feel inflated. Sadly, the principle battle all through many of the film is whether or not the younger buyers should purchase whereas the shares are peaking or maintain the road to proceed the squeeze. The movie drags by means of a lot of its center as repeated arguments over this topic fail to attain any type of rising stress.
It’s unlucky to see an in any other case good piece of cinema rendered almost common by only one flaw, but it surely’s a tough one to disregard. Dumb Cash seemingly gained’t go down in historical past as a cinematic masterpiece, regardless of feeling and looking like one at a number of factors. Nonetheless, it’s inarguably a movie value seeing, and those that interact it with out overly excessive expectations gained’t remorse the worth of admission.
