Rent Dumb Money (2023)
3.2 of 5 from 208 ratings
1h 40min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- "Dumb Money" is based on the insane true story of the YouTuber who brought Wall Street to its knees and got rich by turning the video-game retailer GameStop into the world's hottest company. In the middle of everything is regular guy Keith Gill (Paul Dano), who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock and posting about it. When his social posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich - until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.
- Actors:
- Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D'Onofrio, America Ferrera, Myha'la Herrold, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Seth Rogen, Talia Ryder, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, Kate Burton, Clancy Brown, Rushi Kota, Larry Owens, Dane DeHaan, Olivia Thirlby, Andrea Cárdenas, Noel Tyler Torres, Nicolas Calero
- Directors:
- Craig Gillespie
- Producers:
- Craig Gillespie, Aaron Ryder, Teddy Schwarzman
- Voiced By:
- Kaliswa Brewster, Chase Fein, Dann Fink, Christopher Gray, Jess Kaliban, Trevor McGhie, Turna Mete, Richie Moriarty, Joanna Parson, Armando Riesco, Rebecca Soler
- Writers:
- Lauren Schuker Blum, Rebecca Angelo, Ben Mezrich
- Studio:
- Black Bear UK
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 11/12/2023
- Run Time:
- 104 minutes
- Languages:
- English Audio Description Dolby Digital 2.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.39:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Featurettes
- Deleted Scenes
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Reviews (5) of Dumb Money
Little sibling of 'The Big Short' - Dumb Money review by Tommy
Story of stock of Gamestop, a video game shop found in a shopping center and high street, where a youtube streamer sees the stock is being deliberately driven down so already rich guys can profit causing many average income people to lose money. Paul Dano decides he can make money himself if many people go in on shares with him, basically. Everyone thinks he's mad, he's convinced. And in 'The Big Short' style we see the story unfold as he stands up to the big hedge fund investment firms, while we follow normal people who invest because of his word on the live streams, and naturally it doesn't result in instant success, plus the morally questionable, sometimes illegal, responses of the firms.
This may need some knowledge before hand to watch, especially at the beginning as you get into the flow, as this is fast paced - needed due to the subject. Personally, i had some knowledge and read about it before avoiding spoilers where i could. This i recommend. Not necessarily the story of gamestop and Kieth Gill (Dano) but of investing stocks and shares. Not for long but just the basics. This gets into it from the start without telling you explicitly how it works as Dano and his mate chat about Gamestop. The friend thinks he's throwing away money, Gill won't even buy a more expensive beer.
Through the film they tell us what they're on about but to be honest most of you know about stocks and shares, and most of us don't know much about the investment and financial world of 'short squeezing'. But we know it is a corrupt world, morally and legally. Most of us will gather what is going on as we watch. The film makers knew the audience wouldn't have the patience to learn and then watch the drama. This gets to it in a high pace, the weeks and months pass quick as we watch the stock rise and fall. The obvious inspiration in The Big Short. Dumb Money is a little brother, or sister if you will. The same irreverent humour, tone and pace is applied here. To varying degrees of success but for me, mostly enjoyable. Similar overall realism is there too, reminding us of real people sometimes lose their money which changes their lives. The difference with The Big Short and this is people in Dumb Money are choosing to invest money and know the risk. I do the same IRL. ONLY SPOILER - The real Gill came away really nicely but he took risk. Kieth Gill lead the uprising. He convinces the masses to stand up to the greed of bully investment firms. The gamestop stock being a once every few years opportunity to do so. This doesn't happen often so take the risk, he says (paraphrasing).
This is a solid if unremarkable telling of this subject and kept my interest. Focusing on Gill and his motivations for risking his mortgage, future etc, with a wife and child. He is a middling financial advisor approaching middle age, a formally fairly successful runner, and crucially to the character had a sibling who died. It's not a biopic or a remarkable story but Dano is so good. A quirky character who is looking to make an impact in his field, his brother less obviously motivated. The rest of the cast a solid too, showing greed with an eccentric sense of humour, mostly, balanced to keep the reality in sight.
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Excellent film, almost a companion to The Big Short - Dumb Money review by RW
Really good and engaging depiction of the amazing story of Gamestop and the stock market. Even if you know nothing about it all, this is a very entertaining film that shows both the mechanics of what happened but also the humans behind it.
One of the better films I've seen this year.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Repellent - Dumb Money review by JR
The film seems to pre-suppose you have a fairly good understanding of what happened with Gamestop. If you had no previous knowledge, like me, you won't be able to follow the goings on. The film seems to be in a huge hurry and I soon lost interest in the unappealing/obnoxious characters' antics, all set to rap music with explicit sexist and misogynistic lyrics. It's supposed to be about the little guys undermining the big investment banks, but the irony is that they share the same obsession: the love of money. It is billed as a comedy, but it was boring and un-funny.
0 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
Dumb Money review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso
Dumb Money attempts to make sense of the phenomenon of the GameStop short squeeze of 2021. It covers more than the heavily biased documentaries that cropped up in the past year, but it still leaves a bit of a complicated mess oversimplified. Trying to understand the specifics of how the stock market works is like deciphering the most advanced engineering mathematics. This is not the movie that gives the Big-Short-style explanation of the whole ordeal while making it look stylish. What it does do, however, is provide some personal context for why so many people had faith in this movement.
This mindset makes sense for those who lived through the 2020 pandemic. People were losing money and could barely make ends meet in the pathetic state of the Covid-19 pandemic, where the rich got richer, and the poor were overworked to death. One man, Keith Gill (Paul Dano), offers a chance to deal a blow to hedge fund managers. Though he has a family, he still dumps his money into the failing stock of GameStop. His strategy is shared with everyone as he makes livestream posts of homework on why he keeps buying the stock. He believes that if enough people buy, they’ll be able to inflate the price of the GameStop stock and make the hedgefund managers profiting from it fail.
Keith inspires other down-on-their-luck people to take a chance on his stock advice through his many memes and spreadsheets. Within this narrative, the buyers include the overworked nurse Jennifer (America Ferrera), the bitter GameStop retail employee Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and the college couple of Riri (Myha'la Herrold) and Harmoney (Talia Ryder). They approach this proposition with a “screw it” mentality. They’ve already lost so much money. Why not play the stock market with the one guy online who has the homework to suggest the stock will go up?
The buyers succeed, but their strategy in this endeavor seems to be one of holding out for the stock to go higher. Sure, they’ll make a return on profit if they sell after the sudden increase, but the online movement via the Reddit page of WallStreetBets holds firm on the stock. They know if they not only refuse to sell but buy even more stock that, the stock will go even higher. This new development surprises the hedgefund executives, including Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), Steve Cohen (Vincent D'Onofrio), and Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman). This leads to a cheating maneuver of the trading app Robinhood, taking down the Sell button for GameStop for a short time. The truth behind this move is far more than just hedgefund managers rigging the system, considering there’s a far deeper level of convolution and corruption within Wall Street that is nowhere near as simple as the film makes it seem.
This film works because it boils down the movement into the emotional motivations behind the poor, even if it exaggerates how much boot-sweating there was for the rich. There was some concern with the hedge fund managers, but not enough that ? the managers in this story hardly fret when the GameStop stock is inflated. But for the poor, there’s desperation to play the game. Some of them make some money, and some of them don’t. Many weren’t entirely sure what would happen and saw this ordeal as a chance to shake up the system. While this “short squeeze” made a bit of a dent, it was also a gambling narrative that wrecked people like Jennifer, who didn’t fully realize what they were getting into. There’s also a simple comfort in how the film portrays the rich as bumbling morons intending to ensure the house always wins.
Dumb Money is not the most comprehensive film on this topic, especially when the biggest criticism of the WallStreetBets movement is Keith’s brother, Kevin (Pete Davidson), calling everybody nerds. There’s way more criticism to lob, from questioning the endgame payout to the ableist language of the movement. But the film is skillfully directed with slick editing, humor, and rap music to create a compelling story of fighting for the little guy, even if the little guy never entirely knew the fight he was fighting.