Review of Mad Money (2008) by Gareth R — 26 Apr 2009

Hmm. Well, there's a lot of money in Mad Money - like, enough for the characters to throw into the air or at each other during their surprisingly numerous moments of money-chucking levity - but I'm not sure if any of it's "mad". The film is about three women who repeatedly steal worn-out currency from a Federal Reserve Bank where they work, and the title would be more accurate if it focussed on that. Worn Out Money, for instance. Or Tired Money. Money That Will Fall Apart If You Scrutinise It.

Based on a British TV Movie starring Caroline Quentin (itself based on a true story), Mad Money follows three women with cashflow problems. Bridget (Diane Keaton) is on the verge of having to sell her huge house and can't afford to pay her maid - Oh no! Disaster! - and has to take a job in a bank. It soon occurs to her that stealing piles of redundant cash is pretty easy, so she (and two others who could also use the money) starts making off with thousands of dollars a day.

They spend too much, of course, and keep stealing even after they've settled their debts. If you had any sympathy left for the unlikeable Bridget, it vaporises once she gets that I'm On Top Of The World, Ma! gleam in her eye. What kind of blue-collar idiots steal loads of cash from the bank they work at, and promptly spend it on fur coats and new bathrooms, which they show off during extravagant housewarming parties? They should have sensed trouble the moment they started chucking cash in the air and dancing in it.

More likeable than our shifty heroine is Nina (Queen Latifah), a single mum who actually, genuinely needs more money, and Jackie (Katie Holmes), who shoulders almost the only funny moments of the movie as a youngster seemingly high on insulin. The three of them don't share a lot of chemistry and none of them are very well-drawn or interesting, but Latifah and Holmes are more fun to be around than their shoddy crimelord cohort.

Mad Money starts at the end and tells us the rest in flashback. Obviously this is awful because we know they'll be caught (bye bye, tension), but films that do this are usually trying to disguise a weak or nonexistant opening. Mad Money didn't fool me. The story doesn't particularly grip, and it's not even very well told. Whereas the whole scheme made sense when Caroline Quentin did it (google Hot Money, which is also a slightly better title), it's difficult to follow here, no thanks to the nagging (and pointless) cuts to our heroes explaining the ordeal in an interview room. I also preferred Quentin as the heroine, since she had problems far more tangible than maybe losing her huge house and acres of land. Mad Money too often skates near Fun With Dick & Jane territory: it should be about desperate measures in budget times, but instead it's about middle class twits doing backflips to stay rich. Who cares?

The enduring image, for me, is of Queen Latifah shoving handfuls of cash into a shredder. It's not a terrible film, but nor is it a very funny or even believable one, and to be honest, the more you spend to watch it, the more money you're just throwing away. Don't do it.