After the bad film Expend4bles in the morning, I was really hoping that the second movie of the day would be better. Thankfully, I was entertained considerably more by Dumb Money than I was with that other film.

According to Imdb, “Dumb Money is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (yes, the mall videogame store) 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“

This true story that took place during the heart of the pandemic was amazing and really showed a conflict between the big money and the small investing individuals during this time over the GameStop stock. The movie focused in on several of the individuals and their own stories as well as Keith Gill, who was the driving force behind the movement through his online social media posts.

Paul Dano is excellent as always as the man who “just likes the stock” and who made millions through the stock market. Seth Rogen and Sebastian Stan are great as billionaires on the other side who were looking for a way to squash the online grassroots movement. There is a great cast here as well as those actors including Pete Davidson, Anthony Ramos, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Myha’la Herrold, Clancy Brown, Kate Burton, Shailene Woodley, and Talia Ryder.

Some of the technical aspects of the stock purchase is a touch complicated and could confuse some, but I feel as if the director, Craig Gillespie, does a decent job of making it accessible.

This was a lot of fun and enjoyable film and it told me about a story that I did not know about that had just happened in the recent past.

4.1 stars