MARCH 10 2018 LISTENER 69
SUNDAY MARCH 11Money Monster (TVNZ 2,
8.30pm). It always amuses
me when, in accounting for
Donald Trump’s presence on
the world stage, the global
financial crisis is left off the
balance sheet. If the glut of
post-2008 outrage films is
anything to go by, people are
pissed off. In Money Monster,
television finance expert Lee
Gates (George Clooney) is
taken hostage during a live
broadcast. One of his fol-
lowers, Kyle Budwell (Jack
O’Connell), lost his life savings
after the collapse of IBIS Clear
Capital, whose stocks Gates
had enthusiastically supported.
So, Budwell straps an explosive
vest to the man and they try
to get to the bottom of where
things went wrong. It turns
out that there’s been some
crookery. Director Jodie Foster,
who was a star in Inside Man,
seems to have combined the
logic of that hostage drama
with The Big Short, with mixed
results. (2016)
Samba (Māori TV, 8.30pm).
Samba, an encore to
The Intouchables by
writing-directing team
Olivier Nakache and Éric
Toledano, should be a rela-
tively uncontroversial film.
Troubled social worker Alice
(Charlotte Gainsbourg) slowly
falls in love with an ille-
gal immigrant named Samba
(Omar Sy) from Senegal just as
he is ordered to leave France.
However, since the film’s
release, its message has grown
more charged, as the far
right rises in opposition to
immigration all over Europe
and, according to a 2017
poll, 61% of French people
want all future immigration
from Muslim-majority coun-
tries stopped. This would, of
course, include Sen-
egal, a country that was a
French “possession” for a long
time. (2014)
MONDAY MARCH 12
Michael Jackson’s This Is It
(Prime, 8.30pm). See Michael
Jackson strut his stuff in what
ended up being his last con-
cert. But is this it? Tyler Henry,
E! Channel’s resident celebrity
psychic, has just spoken to MJ
about the events leading up
to his death. Maybe we will
finally learn what really hap-
pened to the King of Pop, in ...
the next episode. (2009)THURSDAY MARCH 15
The Quiet American (Movies
Classics, Sky 034, 8.30pm). In
the midst of the Vietnam War,
US Air Force officer and CIA
agent Alden Pyle (Brendan
Fraser) works undercover in
the South. He meets British
journalist Thomas Fowler
(Michael Caine) and falls in
love with his mistress, Phuong
(Do Thi Hai Yen). And so a
love triangle is formed, against
the backdrop of America’s
early and clandestine years
in the war. Pyle’s character
is thought to be based on
Edward Lansdale, who helped
to orchestrate the election of
Ngo Dinh Diem to the South
Vietnamese presidency and
led the campaign to assassi-
nate Fidel Castro and depose
his Cuban Government,
among other things. Like the
1958 classic, the film is based
on Graham Greene’s novel
of the same name. Release
of The Quiet American was
withheld for a year following
the September 11 attacks as
Miramax had concerns over its
anti-imperial message. (2002)FRIDAY MARCH 16
Hell or High Water (Rialto,
Sky 039, 8.30pm). The West
in general and the US in
particular have always had
a certain fascination with
frontier justice. In Hell or
High Water, Toby and Tanner
Howard (Chris Pine and Ben
Foster) rob branches of theTexas Midlands Bank to pay
off unfair debts to the same
bank, to stop it foreclosing on
their family ranch. An old-
fashioned Texas Ranger called
Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges),
the other kind of justice, is
hot on their tail. DirectorDavid Mackenzie’s Hell or High
Water is as much a tale of rural
America’s economic strife as
it is an action drama. (2016)Films are rated out of 5:
(abysmal) to (amazing).Back to the Future,
Saturday.Better Living Through
Chemistry, Saturday.Samba, Sunday.