Mad Money 女为财死 英语影评

Looking for a fun and witty heist film? Mad Money is not it. As I left the theater I felt nonplussed. For a film marketed as a fun time, it has a remarkable lack of fun.

There is no reason this movie should not have been an absolute blast. Seriously. What was going on during the writing phase that made them forget to inject any entertainment? Maybe they got hung up on using the plot as a road map and forgot that they could safely diverge in order to give the audience something to like.

Mad Money uses the tried and true framing device of the flashback. Right from the get-go, we know that the protagonists are going to get caught, because they already have been. This device has often worked well, but in the hands of better filmmakers with better scripts. A key to effectively using the flashback as a frame is a plot twist or turn, some revelation that makes it seem more than a device. Unfortunately, Mad Money has none of the necessary elements. So, rather than an interesting plot, we are left with the straightforward caper/comedy as presented.

The film may be categorized as a caper/comedy, but it does not deliver on either half of the term. The caper is uninteresting and the comedy is nearly non-existent. It is a shame, too, since the general idea, and the cast, headlined by Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes, would seem to hold a lot of promise.

The story, such as it is, centers on Bridget Cardigan (Keaton), who has a well-to-do husband (Ted Danson) and lives a comfortable, storybook life. A wrench is thrown into the works when he is downsized and Bridget is forced to take a janitorial position at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, where old money is disposed of. Having seen all that soon-to-be shredded cash and spotted in Home Depot a lock matching the one used on the money carts, Bridget, with her needs for funds, gets an idea.

For her plan to work, Bridget needs a couple of accomplices, played by Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes. Now, with a shredder, a "cart girl," and Keaton's janitor, they have all the pieces needed to appropriate some of that soon to be destroyed loot for their personal recycling.

That about sums it up. As a caper it fails to deliver any suspense or thrills. If I didn't know this was just a movie, I'd think it was pretty easy to rob a bank, and that if anyone ever caught on, all you'd need to do is cut them in on the take. Everything went too easily. I never felt there was any danger. And we already know they get caught, so there's no suspense there.

Okay, so we have a lame caper. What about the comedy? The movie fails to deliver many laughs. We get plenty of mugging and weak stabs at humor, but the script is more intent on moving the story along than on being funny.

What's left? Well, there are the characters. But they're another swing and a miss. The blame again rests with the script, which takes no time to develop the characters or give us any reason to care about them. The closest I felt to caring about a character was with Queen Latifah's Nina Brewster. A single mother, she could use the funds to provide her children a better future, but is terribly afraid of losing those children if the thieves are caught. As for Bridget, I felt no connection to her. And Katie Holmes' Jackie? To put it nicely, she is just there, not given much to do.