Dumb Money Blu-ray review
Dec 13, 2023- Permalink
Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money is a comedy-drama based on the short squeeze of Gamestop stock back in January of 2021. If “short squeeze” isn’t in your vocabulary, I’ve linked to an article that should help explain it, but in short (no pun intended), large hedge funds had shorted Gamestop – the shopping mall video game store – hoping to cash in on its demise. When a YouTuber and retail investor named Keith Gill (Paul Dano) invested his life savings into the stock and posted about it on reddit, others began to follow suit, driving the price up, which directly affected the hedge funds whose shorting only makes money when the stock goes down. I’ll stop the explanation there as what happened next is the meat and potatoes of the script. The film, which also stars Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, and Seth Rogen, has now been released on Blu-ray by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. It’s a great looking digital transfer with excellent detail in facial features, textiles and environments. The colour palette is strong and black levels are deep with good detail in darker scenes. There are no compression artifacts or digital noise to speak of. It’s just a pleasing visual presentation.
On the audio side of things, there’s an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. Subtitles are available for English SDH, French, and Spanish. It’s a front-heavy mix, and as dialogue is key here it’s clear and prioritized in the soundscape. The surrounds are given some light work with ambient sounds, while the subwoofer only kicks in when the soundtrack starts kicking.
The Dumb Money Blu-ray comes with a digital code, though once again the Canadian release does not get a digital copy. Extras include an audio commentary by screenwriters Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a look at the casting, and some deleted scenes.
The Dumb Money Blu-ray starts off with a great cast led by Paul Dano and combines it with an excellent presentation and a small collection of extras. It captures one of the big financial stories of 2021 with humour and never drags. Recommended.