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Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money depicts the story of major and minor players in the 2021 GameStop short squeeze and how they tell their story. More importantly, it shows what is wrong with the level playing field of the financial market. However, the film has not forgotten to be entertaining, which is primary. It’s not as heavy-handed in exposing the failures of capitalism, which is a bonus, like McKay‘s The Big Short. An incredibly lovable ensemble holds Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo’s script in I, Tonya and the director finds a wonderful pace that avoids the explosive style of films that attempt the McKay Thing. It’s a still brief, blunt, no-frills comedic film that tries to cram a lot of ideas into 100 minutes, and somehow manages to remind us that even when we think we are playing the game, the opponent has a different rulebook.
Paul Dano portrays Keith Gill, better known as Roaring Kitty, who has soared to infamy after squeezing the shorts out of GameStop. He is a lackluster character on the Reddit Channel called wallstreetbet. To put it simply, some large hedge funds profit by betting on the failure of companies, and it is very much akin to defeating a champion in a gladiator match and then profiting off the bloody mayhem. Gill managed to hype a large portion of young people into purchasing GameStop stocks with the ridiculous amounts of money they made from selling the options which advanced their initial low buy-in. Gill’s paper shifted into a multi-millionaire but he did not sell his stock which sent the billionaires into a frenzy leading to Robin Hood, a day trading company, colluding with a hedge fund owner to halt stock trading. They breached the contract because a free market operates within the bounds of buying and selling. It instigated congressional inquiries like claiming Gill had insider information which is chuckle-worthy because how does someone who belongs to the group of investors that rich people refer to as dumb money lose them a billion dollars?
Blum and Angelo narrate this using a wide canvas while drawing from Ben Mezrich’s book, who also penned the nonfiction book that was turned into Social Network.
In Boston, there is a Gill a Caroline (Shailene Woodley), and a Kevin (Pete Davidson) who all seem to be in shock that this ‘nerdy’ brother is doing so well in life. There are also a few assets like a nurse called Jenny (America Ferrera), a GameStop clerk called Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and some college students, Harmony (Talia Ryder) and Riri (Myha’la Herrold). On the other sideline, Gabe Plotkin’s spoiled idiocy is taken by Seth Rogen, and he also sketches the eccentric Steve Cohen. Then, there is Vincent D’Onofrio who messes around, and Steve Stan who bumbles through the arc of Robin Hood head Vlad Tenev. Finally, Nick Offerman glares Ken Griffin into existence.
The performances of the actors in this movie were satisfactory, and since it was Gillespie managing the cast, no one overacted to take the focus. This sort of wide-ranging piece can often fail to come together, but with Dumb Money, that’s not the case, Gillespie clearly provides ample, relevant context along with details about characters. But I could have used more of the latter in that sometimes Dumb Money oversimplifies the complex social interactions that instigated this monumental change in the financial industry. Yes, it is not that type of film, but there exists a certain version of Dumb Money that uses a microscope instead of a telescope and tries to dig out the root causes of the existing disparity and the role, or rather, the impact of the pandemic like everybody being glued to their screens watching Roaring Kitty clips and desperately trying to gain control over the uncontrollable world outside. And one wonders if people would not have been more annoyed at the whole situation had the pandemic along with other problems of 2020-21 not dominated news headlines.
Having too many speeches on rising capitalism has made Dumb Money better. Like many inferior films nowadays, this film does not condescend to its audience, nor does it make the mistake of expecting users to invest their precious time into today’s retail trading culture.
Gillespie cleverly steers clear of those traps, maintaining the flow of the dramedy without falling into melodrama. This is what occurs when regular folks, at long last, succeed in breaching the barriers that the age-old structures of this society have put in place.
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