Dumb Money

Craig Gillespie directs Dumb Money and tells the story of the GameStop short squeeze of 2021. The movie follows Keith Gill, also known as Roaring Kitty, and a group of amateur investors who took on Wall Street and made millions by investing in GameStop. With a cast of characters that are expertly crafted, the movie deconstructs the GameStop short squeeze into terms even non-experts in the stock market might understand. The movie captures the online whisper network that builds a "meme stock" and the insidious influence of social media. The ensemble cast of Dumb Money is outstanding, and director Craig Gillespie skilfully directs them so that no one overacts or takes centre stage. The movie has lively energy and a great performance by Paul Dano as Keith Gill, AKA Roaring Kitty. It also manages to successfully bring together a number of different supporting characters and parallel storylines. The movie, nevertheless, might have done a better job of developing the personalities and their goals. Gillespie approaches the subject matter with the same cynicism and irony he showed in I, Tonya, his bizarrely humorous interpretation of the Tonya Harding affair. The lighting design of the movie and its attempts to create tension from close-ups of people staring at screens are evocative of David Fincher's The Social Network. The score and cinematography are serviceable but not particularly memorable. The editing of Dumb Money is solid, and the pacing is brisk. The majority of the film switches back and forth between the viewpoints of its characters in the second and third acts, gradually revealing to the audience how much each stands to gain and lose from GameStop's skilfully orchestrated success. The dialogue is witty and engaging, but it lacks the depth and nuance that could have made the movie more compelling. Dumb Money is a missed opportunity for a deeper exploration of the GameStop short squeeze. The movie has a fantastic cast and a lot of action, but it does not go into detail about the particular dynamics that made this dramatic change in the economy possible. In order to fully explore the forces of injustice and how the pandemic affected the event, the film should have gone deeper and raised more challenging queries. The film is entertaining enough, but it falls short of its potential. I would recommend Dumb Money to those who are interested in the GameStop short squeeze and want to see a dramatisation of the events. However, those looking for a more nuanced exploration of the topic may be disappointed.

You can just smell it, how out of touch the writer, director, entire cast was about internet culture the first few minutes in. It is kind of laughable seeing people dramatizing simple click and talk funny meme posting turn into life and death financial deicisions. The famous reddit posts were never about changing lives or toppling the system, it was more about seeing if it was possible and trying it for the heck of it. I seriously doubt anyone had any real stakes invested in turning a fortune by investing into a long dead video game business. It was a well done demonstration of market manipulation with very juvenile intentions. The movie feels like the social network in that it takes itself too seriously, only the social network managed to pull the serious tone off with self awareness and just too cool to fail slick scene directions + acting. This movie fails in its attempt to be both the social network in its dramatic depiction and being the big short in its informativeness. It is summarized in one internet zoomer slang term : Cringe.

This could have been an excellent movie. It failed. The story of an investor who manipulates stock prices simply by generating hype over an otherwise bland company is worthy of a film, especially in this era where influencers seem to have deprived the public of much of their common sense. However, presenting such a story requires subtlety, and explanations of the economic forces in presence. Here, the script assumes that viewers will conclude that there was something not too legit going on but lacks an explanation of the game. The swift rhythm of short scenes depicting investors, tycoons and other characters lends energy to the film, but perhaps a bit too much. But the worst part is the sound editing. The characters mumble constantly, to the point where half the dialogues are lost. A persistent music background does not help either. So while the story that we are guessing as the movie goes on is quite interesting, the storytelling fails miserably. It looked like a low-budget, non-nudie version of The Wolf of Wall Street, an awful movie of a decade ago.

Its like your waiting for something but it never comes, although this movie is 1 hour and 40 mins it felt like 3 hours , no intresting dialouges and the story itself is not intersting and i get that its based on a true story but come on at least make some good jokes its a drama / comedy film , the comedy was cringy at times and not funny ... i know im going harsh on this movie but they could've made it better with this film , also whats up with the soundtracks worst music i have heard, this movie woul've been better if it had better actors , better dialouges and funny jokes , sadly none of it exist.