“Mad Money” Leaves You Wanting Yours Back!

3 out of 5 rating.

Do you remember a time when planning a heist was actually a serious affair? Truthfully, I’ve never found anything comical about strategically composing a plan to steal money, or any goods for that matter, and this year’s “Mad Money” does nothing but prove my point.

“Mad Money” is about three female employees-Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes-who repeatedly steal from the Federal Reserve Bank. How? Easy, all they do is switch the government locks with locks of their own, then stuff all the old-ragged money in their bra and panties before it is taken to the shedder. If only life was that simple.

To call this movie a “comedy” is a stretch. Keaton, who plays a cleaning lady at the Federal Reserve Bank after her husband (Ted Danson) gets downsized from his previous employer, coerces two co-workers (Latifah and Holmes) to help her devise a plan to steal as much of the old money as possible before it gets destroyed.  Like any other heist movie, greed kicks in as the women continually steal to from the bank; resulting in later adding a bank security guard to their group.

Overture Films’ first release may pull in a decent opening weekend because of the three big names on the top of the call sheet, but there is little or no hope for the remainder weeks in theaters, or for its DVDs sales. There is absolutely no suspense geared toward the audience during the scenes where the women are stealing the money from the bank-something that should be associated with a heist.  The comedy is dry and yet not frequent enough for ‘Money’ to be considered as such.

Its hard to say if Queen Latifah has forgotten her acting roots due to the money she has made from Covergirl and being the voice-over for Pizza Hut commercials, but Latifah shows no hint of remembering the ‘bank-robbing ways’ she once possessed in the movie “Set it off”; appearing to be nothing more than a middle-aged newcomer when in scenes with veteran Diane Keaton.

With bad acting, bland comedy, and a terrible screenplay, “Mad Money” does nothing but leave us still searching for 2008’s first decent comedy.

If only “Juno” could have been released just a few weeks later.

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