Mad Money is Ocean’s Eleven meets Desperate Housewives, though not nearly as funny or dramatic. I don’t want to say that the superstar trio of Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes, and Queen Latifah are phoning it in; it’s more like they’re sending a fax. There are montages, glee and girl power by way of director Callie Khouri, who also helmed Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, but there’s little fun underneath the omnipresent moral ambiguity. Still, chick flicks don’t see bad-girl anti-heroes too often, so there’s at least a shred of originality to keep Mad Money afloat.
Ever wonder how a kindly middle-aged women can end up in prison for a felony? For Bridget Cardigan (Keaton), it begins with an unemployed husband (Ted Danson), hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, and a new position as a janitor at the Federal Reserve, where millions of decaying bills are shredded each day. Recruiting the help of fellow employees Nina (Latifah) and Jackie (Holmes), Bridget devises an ingenious plan to steal the cash.
It’s a caper movie, with one twist: We know they get caught. The movie is peppered with short clips of the heroines being interrogated, explaining their actions in weird noir-ish dialogue. The cleverness of these anachronistic plots is running thin—Memento did it well, as did the opening scene of Ratatouille, but here it removes any suspense from their heist. The movie could essentially begin an hour and a half in.
At least the heist is interesting, if fantastical (if the Federal Reserve actually uses ordinary Master Locks to guard billions, I’m moving to Canada). Danny Ocean needed ten buddies to steal from a casino; Bridget robs the government with two. The plan is remarkably simple and would be believable for a lower-security institution. Their robbery is fun to watch—the first time. But clips of the same three heist maneuvers are shown again and again, often with increasingly annoying cutesy transitions.
The leads are three strong actresses giving average performances. Apparently we’re supposed to like Keaton’s character, but she goes from troubled empty-nester to gloating Cruella de Vil in record time. Latifah is better, adding some class, but this is not Mama from Chicago by any means. And Holmes, back after at two-year hiatus, is doing nothing to help her public image of talent being replaced by eccentricity (though she gets most of the laughs, if only by being outlandishly strange).
Two supporting characters deserve mention, for opposite reasons. Barry (Roger R. Cross) is a silly, lecherous security guard who pulls an outrageous personality flip at the two-thirds mark. But most of Cross’s performance is strong and his scenes with Latifah are the movie’s high point. In contrast, Stephen Root is awful as Glover, the idiotic and stubborn Reserve manager. Root does the same thing each time he’s on camera, and could teach Overacting 101.
One reason Ocean’s Eleven succeeded was because nobody imposed any moral framework on the Eleven’s actions. They were criminals, they were stealing from criminals, that was it. Here we have criminals who occasionally pause to wonder if crime really does pay and if money really can buy happiness. Their final answer? “Yes.” If that’s the message you’re looking for, Mad Money is for you.
Stuck between comedy and drama, achieving little of either, Mad Money is nothing more than a typical mediocre January release.
NBN Rating: C-