Painfully predictable and uninspired, Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (D) begins with George Clooney on a toilet and essentially spirals downward from there. When Jack O’Connell’s gunman character holds the silver fox TV personality hostage on-air, it’s up to mild-mannered protagonist Julia Roberts in the production booth to help save the day. Tedium ensues. The theme that the stock market is corrupt is labored at best; and the acting from the central trio is quite disappointing. Foster fails at sustaining tension, seemingly rather oblivious to how obvious it all is. The film doesn’t take time to understand its characters or to have viewers delight in knowing them. Not one shot, not one set-up, not one line of dialogue, was interesting in the least. Despite the promise of an adult drama about the societal underpinnings of an investment community devoid of a moral compass, the film is pretty much what cashing a paycheck looks like. Instead of slaying the beast of Wall Street, the collaborators have created a banquet of bull that is difficult to bear. This formula has been executed many times much better.