Mad Money - A Review

The last Diane Keaton movie I saw was The Woman. It was like having my teeth pulled without an anaesthetic and by a butcher instead of a dentist. As I found myself settling down for an evening in front of the cable movie network with the in-laws to watch this film I was holding onto my teeth. But thankfully I was able to let go of them and eat my fish and chips without fear of the third worst thing after child birth – a bad chick flick.

This was far from it. A good script despite the excruciating cast. Actually Katie Holmes isn’t so bad, I’ve liked every film I’ve ever seen her in from Go to Pieces of April... its just the stigma of Dawson pulling one arm and Tom pulling the other throughout her career that makes me instantly go “Oh no, not Katie Holms...” But I mustn’t tar her before I feather her. I was after all devastated that she was replaced in Bat Man Dark Knight by that Gyllenhaal girl... Then there’s Queen Latifa... for a moment there I thought of her as the Woopie Goldberg for the Next Generation but she’s not bad either. Ted Dansen appears to have gone a bit Steve Martinish in this piece but he suited his role. Finally the only bad thing about Dian Keaton I could think of while I played with my wife’s hair (thus securing my place on the couch) was “Is she Michael Keaton’s wife?” – to which the answer was “No.”

This was not a film that made it to the New Zealand cinemas, or if it did it slipped silently past me as I slept in the projection booth. It left me wondering why head aches like Fast and the Furious 4, Stomp the Yard or Epic Movie make it to the masses while a well written film like this gets a slot on Sky Television where only those who can afford the movie package can afford to see it. Its either a conspiracy to dumb down the masses with movies written for teenagers or its the marketing people who sit in their sunny air conditioned offices, who haven’t got a clue what movie goers really want to see, who decide that people are too dumb to enjoy a good plot in this day and age... which is stupid because most of us have adapted to advanced technologies like ipods and Transformer toys... oh wait, most of those don’t even transform anymore... so I guess they really do think we’re stupid...

Anyway... Dianne K lady plays Bridget, a Wife who finds herself looking for a job after her husband is downsized. After searching and failing she finally goes to the only place she can, all the way down to a cleaning position in the Federal Reserve Bank. She gets to wear big green rubber gloves and touch gross things. But worse is the amount of cash she witnesses on a daily bases being chewed up and trashed in a system so air tight that no one has ever dreamed of rescuing the innocent cash from its untimely demise of mulching. That is until Bridget master minds a brilliant scheme to get the cash safely to her home and hidden in her underwear draw, among other places. All she needs is a lock from a hardware store and to enlist a ditzy head phone wearing girl, Katie, and a tough single mom who would do anything for her kids – Latifa the Queen of whatever, you go girlfriend... The women succeed in smuggling over $30,000 worth of doomed cash without the slightest possibility of being caught, and just when the wisest among us would quit such a scheme Diane AKA Bridget becomes a Mad Woman intent on dragging her friends, her husband, a Latifa smitten Security Guard and the ditzy girls ditzier boyfriend further into fake millionaire-hood . Things are going great until they start spending their unexplained income and before you know it the Banking Police are after them and the film hurtles toward the twisted end where it began in the first place.

I will admit that although this was a comedy I found myself laughing at all the bits I wasn’t supposed to. The funniest being when she hid rolls of cash in her grundy draw and I said, “Ew gross, I could never do that, not after so many people have handled them...” To which my witty brother in law said, “What, your underwear?” So I guess you could say it was an interactive film. But the thing that got me more than the jokes I didn’t laugh at was the fact it was a clever tale... so clever infact that I forgot it was a feminist Girls can do Anything flick, which includes robbing a bank and shopping in a hardware store for plumbing supplies, which I had to remind myself was TV magic at its best. But apart from that I don't think a man could drown in even an inch of the themes this movie preached...

So out of 10, I give this film a 5 for entertainment...

But an 8 out of ten for allowing me to hold down my greasy dinner.


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