Dumb Money

 

 

     Based on a true story, this new film recounts the crazy story of how the "little guy" took on Wall Street Hedge Fund billionaires trading Game Stop shares. While the hedge funds were betting the Game Stop stock would fail, a group of small-time individual investors, following the advice of Keith Gill, kept buying up stock using a site called "WallStreetBets" a subredditt site managed by Robinhood.

     While he had a day job, Mr. Gill, in his spare time had his own internet site offering stock advice as "Roaring Kitty". He did a deep analysis of Game Stop and began watching the stock very closely buying up shares himself. As he gained more and more followers, the stock price began to rise and hedge fund investors looking to "short" the stock took huge losses.

     The film simplifies the story making it easy to follow even if you are stock market ignorant. I'm sure the real story is much more involved and complex, but director Criag Gillespie and writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo do a great job breaking it down to its core with humor and unexpected suspense.

     Paul Dano stars as Keith Gill, Shailene Woodley as Caroline, his wife, and Pete Davidson as Keith's brother, Kevin. Also starring as the Hedge fund billionaires are Vincent D'Onofrio as Steve Cohen, Nick Offerman as Kenneth Griffin, and Seth Rogan as Gabe Plotkin. Sebastian Stan and Rushi Kota play the owners of the Robinhood site that causes chaos when they shut down the trading. And while the film can't tell the story of every individual investor, America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos, Myha"la Herrold and Talis Ryder represent the "little guys" that at times, invested their life savings on the advice of "Roaring Kitty".

      The story is unbelievable but true, and the film version, which I'm sure has its fictional elements, is very entertaining. It would make a great double feature with "The Big Short".