Craig Gillespie has moved me in the past with I, Tonya and Pam & Tommy. Dumb Money though simply skims the surface in regard to character development and basic exposition.
Paul Dano is an acting God. I have followed his career from There Will Be Blood to Love & Mercy to Dumb Money. I even saw him live on Broadway with Ethan Hawke in True West.
In Dumb Money, the writers (three (Blum, Angelo, Mezrich) which could be the problem as in “three’s a crowd”) are criminal not to have given Paul more to do (how about more back story, flashbacks, etc). Still, like many people blinded by love, I’d follow him anywhere and believe in his character.
Vincent D’Onofio plays a rich d-bag, ok, I learned nothing of his character and am still in the dark about what rich people do on a day to day basis. According to this film, they just eat and play tennis all day long…true? Ditto Nick Offerman=rich people are a-holes…and???? Tell me something more, or maybe there isn’t more. The only rich person I felt was credible was Sebastian Stan (Tommy Lee) who plays one of the co-creators of Robinhood. I hope he gets meatier roles of which he is certainly capable.
Now on to the middle class folk: American Ferrara was THE best thing about Barbie, yet here I couldn’t believe her as the hard ass nurse partly because I saw nothing nurturing about her character. She seemed like a selfish whiney single mom to me. Anthony Ramos was the only of the younger set I believed and also rooted for as I couldn’t root for the two college girls because they were brash millennials unconcerned about how their obnoxious behavior affected those around them. I used to like Pete Davidson, but now I just think he is a dysfunctional pothead who happens to score roles playing himself.
Gillespie loves music and I enjoyed the rap soundtrack in Dumb Money.
So should you see it? Sure, the tension was effective as were the few aforementioned actors and it’s always fun to see underdogs win. Seeing the real people at the end allowed for a delicious aftertaste.
Dumb Money Could Have Been Smarter
