Jack and I liked this taut thriller about a finance TV show host held hostage during a live broadcast, with reliable star power from George Clooney as the madcap host and Julia Roberts the sensible producer. Jodie Foster works from the actual director's chair (last blogged for Hail, Caesar!, August: Osage County, and The Beaver, respectively). Jack O'Connell (covered in '71) adapts a New York accent instead of his native Irish to convincingly play the aggrieved gunman. Lenny Venito (a character actor with dozens of projects on his resumé) is the cameraman who says his name is "Lenny with a Y not an I-E," among the many supporting roles.
The script by Jamie Linden (new to me, he has three others to his credit), Alan DiFiore (ditto, with several credits), and Jim Kouf (Stakeout (1987) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), among others), with story by the latter two, was on the 2014 Blacklist, an honor for the best unproduced screenplays of the year.
Cinematographer Matthew Libatique (most recently in these pages for Chi-Raq) gives us crisp images inside and outside the studio, and the music by Dominic Lewis is suitably exciting. It can be streamed from this link.
Despite a tepid rating of 55% critics and 60 from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, this is still playing on big screens in this area. Fans of the stars should check it out.
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