| Director | Jodie Foster |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 99 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $27 million |
| Box office | $93.3 million |
Flamboyant television financial expert Lee Gates is in the midst of the latest edition of his show, Money Monster. Less than 24 hours earlier, IBIS Clear Capital's stock inexplicably cratered, supposedly due to a glitch in a trading algorithm, costing investors $800 million. Lee planned to have IBIS CEO Walt Camby appear for an interview, but Camby unexpectedly departed for a business trip to Geneva, Switzerland.
Midway through the show, a deliveryman wanders onto the set, pulls a gun and takes Lee hostage, forcing him to put on a vest laden with explosives. The man reveals that his name is Kyle Budwell, who invested $60,000—his entire life savings—in IBIS after Lee endorsed the company on camera. He was wiped out along with the other investors.
Unless Kyle gets some answers, he will blow up Lee before killing himself. Once police are notified, they discover that the receiver to the bomb's vest is located over Lee's kidney. The only way to destroy the receiver—and with it, Kyle's leverage—is to shoot Lee and hope he survives.
With the help of longtime director Patty Fenn, Lee tries to calm Kyle and locate Camby, though Kyle is dissatisfied when both Lee and IBIS chief communications officer Diane Lester offer to compensate him for his financial loss. He is angered by Diane's insistence that the algorithm is to blame. Diane is not satisfied with her own explanation, either, and defies colleagues by contacting a programmer who created the algorithm, Won Joon. Reached in Seoul, Joon insists that an algorithm could not take such a large, lopsided position without someone meddling with it.
Lee appeals to his TV viewers for help, seeking to recoup the lost investment, but is dejected by their response. The NYPD find Kyle's pregnant girlfriend Molly and allow her to talk to Kyle through a video feed. When she learns that he lost everything, she viciously berates him before the police cut the feed. Lee, seeing the decimation that has been visited on Kyle (i.e., not only losing so much money, but being yelled at on live TV by his hateful, spiteful girlfriend), decides to side with Kyle. Lee agrees to help his captor discover what went wrong.
Once Camby arrives, Diane flips through his passport, discovering that instead of going to Geneva he went to Johannesburg, South Africa. With this clue, along with messages from Camby's phone, Patty and the Money Monster team contact a group of Icelandic hackers to seek the truth. After a police sniper misses a shot at Lee, he and Kyle resolve to corner Camby at Federal Hall National Memorial, where, according to Diane, Camby is headed.
They head out with network cameramen Lenny, plus the police, and a mob of fans and jeerers alike. Having earned his trust, Kyle admits to Lee that the vest does not actually contain explosives, simply clay. Kyle accidentally shoots and wounds producer Ron Sprecher when Ron throws Lee a new earpiece. Kyle and Lee finally confront Camby with video evidence obtained by the hackers.
Camby had bribed the militant leader of a South African miners' union to go on strike at a platinum mine. When the mining company's share price crashed, IBIS bought $800million of its shares. Camby intended to take advantage of the strike ending at a pre-arranged time, selling at a much higher than the purchase price as the stock rebounded, potentially making IBIS $2.4billion.
The gambit backfired when the union stayed on the picket line. Camby visited the union leader that day in an unsuccessful attempt to bully him into ending the strike. IBIS' stock continued to plummet under the weight of its investment in the failing stock of the mining company. Despite the evidence, Camby refuses to admit his swindle until Kyle takes the explosive vest off Lee and puts it on Camby.
Camby finally admits to his wrongdoing on live camera. Satisfied with the outcome, and knowing the detonator is harmless, Kyle instigates suicide by cophe triggers the detonator and is instantly shot by a sniper. Lee punches Camby, as his greed and corruption cost Kyle his life.
In the aftermath, the SEC announces that IBIS will be placed under investigation, while Camby is charged with criminal violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Lee and Patty reconcile, wondering how they will follow their last broadcast.