The studio atmosphere is captured convincingly as we see the broadcast put together. Overseeing it all is Julia Roberts as Patty Fenn, who sits in the control room with a direct line into Gates’s ear so she can give him commands and prompts. We sense an unspoken romantic tie between them through the vibes of their communication. Roberts is especially good here.

The Fenn-to-Gates set-up becomes extra important when all hell breaks loose on the program. A desperate loser named Kyle Budwell, played convincingly by Jack O’Connell, manages to get onto the set with a gun and a vest that he says is filled with explosives that he can trigger. He has lost all of his money by buying stock at Gates’s recommendation, and he not only is vengeful, but wants to know why this happened and get an admission of guilt from the corporate head in belief that something crooked is going on.

The life-and-death drama becomes watched by viewers everywhere, the cops arrive and Gates, prompted by Fenn, begins to use his wits to try to calm Kyle, who at one point puts the vest on Gates with a threat to blow him up. “Money Monster” gathers suspense as the confrontation becomes dangerously intense.

Kyle earns our sympathy as a symbol of the little guy caught in the machinations of a greedy, corrupt business honcho and the system in general. One twist becomes amusing when Kyle’s pregnant girlfriend is found and talks to him on screen, supposedly to get him to surrender. Instead she explodes with a burst of invective against him as a hopeless loser.

The film, in addition to its suspense aspect, flaunts a sense of humor as it satirizes TV money programs, media frenzy, business corruption, public gullibility and public indifference. One of the funniest moments occurs when Gates pleads over the air for everyone watching to buy a little stock in the company in question to make it go up for Kyle and thus save Gates’s life. Gates challenges the public to show how much his life is worth. He gets his answer. Nothing happens.

We know somehow all must end badly for poor Kyle, and the action grows more and more outrageous as Clooney tries to save both their lives. It involves tracking down the boss of the company, escaping from the studio into the streets of New York, with a trail of police following Gates and Kyle, with all of the attendant fury the situation unleashes as the film barrels to its climax. Three screenwriters, Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf were involved in cooking up the stew.