I remember at a certain point students of mine talking up how they were buying GameStop stock. I likewise pointed out that I thought it was probably a bad idea to jump on a trend like that as I figured it was more likely to lead to them losing money, and I am not sure my students often have much money. Then again, it sounded better than investing in NFTs or something. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand how the stock market works beyond the very basics, but I likewise know that means I shouldn’t mess with it.

The new movie Dumb Money didn’t really teach me much more, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t entertained.

It’s late 2020/early 2021. COVID vaccines haven’t arrived yet. People are masking up. Stores are closed. And in the middle of all that is Keith Gil (Paul Dano), a soft-spoken YouTube personality who takes to wearing cat t-shirts and a headband on air. He works for an investment firm, but he uses his live broadcasts to basically show off his current portfolio and explain why various signs point to GameStop’s stock being a good investment. There’s a good reason for that: some powerful hedge fund managers (Seth Rogen, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Nick Offerman) are all getting ready to do a short squeeze on the company, betting on it to lose in order to make money. But between Keith and a few other online outlets, lots of folks decide to buy GameStop stock, such as nurse Jenny (America Ferrera), GameStop clerk Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and college students Harmony and Riri (Talia Ryder and Myha’la Herrold).

What follows is basically a war between the few haves and the many have nots. Keith’s advice works out great, and lots of people are making a lot of money as long as Keith holds on the stock. Since these are hedge fund managers worth millions if not billions of dollars each, they have their own ways to try to make a lot of money at the expense of, well, everyone else. These are men used to welding the levels of power, and it turns out that many of the folks holding are people just scraping by for the most part, but at the same time, they aren’t necessarily doing this for the money. No, these are angry people following the soft-spoken Keith to, among other things, stick it to the hedge fund types.

Dumb Money is the latest movie from director Craig Gillespie, who gave the world I, Tanya and Cruella, so it’s not unreasonable to assume this will at least be entertaining. And it is, but for all the movie is something of a satirical comedy, it’s also a call to arms, and aside from Pete Davidson as Keith’s younger brother Kevin, this isn’t really what I would call a particularly laugh-out-loud sort of comedy so much as it is a “stop and think about it” comedy. Keith and his wife (Shailene Woodley) live in a small rented house where he needs to figure everything out for himself while the hedge fund guys all live in giant houses surrounded by servants wearing masks while the hedge fund guys and their family and friends don’t because, I guess, COVID is only a poor person’s disease, where everything they do is the product of outside consultation. And then there’s Keith’s fans, all of whom have reasons to hold of their own, most of which all adds up to the hedge fund managers are just living off other people’s money and don’t seem to care.

It helps that Dano is about perfect in the lead role. He’s quiet, not particularly showy, and comes across mostly as a big dork. I’m not sure why this guy would have any sort of following, but the movie suggests it isn’t initially very big. In the meantime, there really is a feeling that the rich are used to not following the rules that the rest of us have to follow (like with the COVID masks). The end result seems to be something that doesn’t really topple an unjust system so much as show how it adapted to the masses making up their own rules. It actually makes for something a little less satisfying, but at the same time, it’s not like the real world overthrew capitalism or something.

Grade: B+


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