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It’s been said that movies about women don’t make money anymore—so studios are releasing fewer and fewer. It only seems logical, then, that those girl-movies that do manage to make it through the arduous studio process would be the best girl-movies available, right? But if that’s the case, I’m truly and deeply concerned for the future of chick flicks.
One of the first (and, I sure hope, the worst) chick flicks of 2008, Mad Money tells the story of an unlikely heist by three unlikely crooks. Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) is used to having everything—until her husband, Don (Ted Danson), is downsized. When their checks to the maid start bouncing, Bridget decides to get a job. She ends up taking out the trash at the Federal Reserve, where she’s constantly surrounded by a whole bunch of money that she can’t have—money that’s about to be destroyed. And that’s when Bridget comes up with her plan.
Bridget recruits single mom and Federal Reserve cash shredder Nina (Queen Latifah)—along with dippy cart handler Jackie (Katie Holmes)—to help her rob the Reserve. And just like that, they’re swimming in cash—and no one has any idea that the money’s missing.
Now, I realize that Mad Money is just supposed to be one of those brainless January comedies that help moviegoers unwind from the holiday insanity. But instead of a light, fun movie with loveable characters, it’s a painfully repetitive movie with irritating characters. Keaton’s Bridget is nothing but a flighty, fidgety, clueless housewife—yet she somehow manages to come up with (and follow through on) a fail-proof way to rob the government…repeatedly. Holmes (who, as the ever-observant Jason Zingale pointed out to me, was given “the worst wig ever”) seems to confirm certain people’s fears that Tom Cruise has ordered that her brain be replaced with oatmeal by spending the entire film looking, sadly, like a lobotomy patient. The only character who seems to have a clue is Latifah’s Nina—which makes you wonder why on Earth she got herself messed up with the other two misfits.
While you might think that robbing the Reserve would take lots of planning, the whole thing just comes together in about three minutes—and the women spend the rest of the movie pulling off the heist over and over again. Okay, so they almost get caught a couple of times—but, mostly, it’s just way too much of the same old thing. Basically, it’s a 30-minute story fluffed up to a tedious hour and 45 minutes.
In many cases like this, when I just can’t get into a movie, I can say, “Well, I’m not the target audience, so maybe I just don’t get it.” But here’s the problem: I am Mad Money’s target audience. I’m a woman aged somewhere between Katie Holmes and Diane Keaton. And, despite the fact that I’m a bitter, cynical film critic, I still love a good chick flick. I should be raving about this movie, shouldn’t I? And yet Mad Money lost my attention before it ever really had it. And that, my friends, is a serious problem.
If Mad Money is the best that chick flicks have to offer, it makes me just a little bit ashamed of my pair of X chromosomes.
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