Overview: ‘Dumb Cash’ wages battle on the rich by means of sensory overload

Gabe Plotkin, the millionaire hedge fund founder and chief data officer performed by Seth Rogen, sits in his oceanfront mansion, getting ready for a TV interview about his sinking fund. His make-up artist asks how he’s liking Miami after his current transfer. Plotkin says he loves the warmth, however hates the humidity.

Traders like Plotkin, with their billion greenback security nets woven collectively and held up by the working class, love the chance of the inventory market. Once they really feel strain within the air, nicely, that’s once they begin to sweat. 

“Dumb Cash,” directed by Craig Gillespie, was launched on Sept. 15. Based mostly on the true story of the 2021 GameStop brief squeeze, the film follows a gaggle of newbie traders led by YouTube finance guru Keith Gill, additionally recognized by his deal with title “Roaring Kitty.” They use social media to show often shorted GameStop inventory into gold, bleeding big-time traders out of billions of {dollars}. 

The movie contains a star-studded solid, together with Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, America Ferrera and Nick Offerman. Gillespie and the solid inform the story of Roaring Kitty versus hedge-fund executives like Plotkin and the villain of the film, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, utilizing fictionalized tales of Roaring Kitty’s followers as they revenue off of their GameStop shares.

The film captures the essence of 2021, depicting how the pandemic was a time of digital sensory overload — rap music blasts as we’re proven montages of the ever-churning information cycle and meme codecs that grew outdated after days. Regardless of the pandemic, the mega-rich throw warning to the wind, internet hosting lavish events as the businesses of their brief portfolios foreclose. The movie establishes 2021 as a wildly unpredictable period, the right setting for the brief squeeze that turned Wall Road the other way up. Just like the GameStop brief squeeze in actual life, following the occasions within the film is attention-grabbing enjoyable for the uninvolved. 

Tales of Gill and his working-class followers floor the film amongst the extremities of social media and the grandeur of million-dollar mansions. The journeys of scholars, important employees and on a regular basis Individuals with overwhelming money owed remind viewers that the flashiness of the Web and the inventory market can typically sarcastically pacify the frequent man. As Gill says, “The entire fucking world stored my ego in verify.” 

The reigning query of the film is what was in most minds throughout the pandemic: “Are we going to be okay?” America Ferrera’s nurse-slash-Roaring-Kitty-follower asks this as soon as at first of the movie, however because the film traverses the instabilities of COVID-19 strains and the inventory market, it returns to the identical query. “Dumb Cash” retains viewers guessing for some time, till it takes a pointy flip with its messaging. Sure, the film asserts, a brand new day is dawning for retail traders — a day when the little man has an opportunity to make it huge within the inventory market.

For a movie that makes an attempt to overturn the concept that billionaires will at all times reign supreme, it basks in overconfidence itself. Maybe the extravagance of the film is supposed to sedate the viewers with the same false sense of optimism. It does appear ironic that, after the film finishes espousing a message of hope for the working class, the emblem for Winklevoss Footage flashes on display.

Simply two years after the occasions of the film, GameStop continues to be struggling. Ken Griffin may be momentarily pissed at Gillespie, however he’s nonetheless sitting in his Miami mansion, at the moment the wealthiest particular person in Florida. He’s on the listing of the prime 50 richest folks within the U.S., dwelling in one of many prime 10 states with the worst wealth inequality. Only one yr in the past, he spent $43 million {dollars} on a uncommon copy of the U.S. Structure at his then 14 year-old son’s urging. He has been shopping for properties throughout Miami, making an attempt to relocate a historic residence in opposition to the urging of historians and preservationists. His present inner battle is whether or not or to not turn into a main donor for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential marketing campaign. 

Sorry, “Dumb Cash.” It’s protected to say that the Ken Griffins of the world have adjusted to the humidity. 

Contact Liv Steinhardt at [email protected].