Star Power Can’t Save ‘Mad Money’ From ‘Thelma & Louise’ Writer Callie Khouri

CHICAGO – Whenever there’s stunt-movie casting with divergent generations of Hollywood “stars,” there’s bound to be trouble at the multiplex. This time, the “old to young” range of Diane “Annie Hall” Keaton, Queen Latifah and the increasingly annoying Katie Holmes attempt a stab at the classic heist movie in “Mad Money”.

Keaton portrays Bridget Cardigan: an upper-middle class matron whose husband (Ted Danson) has been laid off for a year and has given up trying to find another gig. Overwhelmed by debt and bills, Keaton goes back out into the work force. In an “it only can happen in the movies” turn of events, the best job she can find is as a janitor at the Federal Reserve bank (I guess all the administration jobs at the real estate offices were full).

Ted Danson in “Mad Money”. Photo credit: IMDb

As she gets into her new career – strangely doing the cleaning work during the day shift – she notices there are some flaws in the airtight security involving the shredding of old currency.

Enlisting the aid of the shredding machinist (Latifah) and a currency transport clerk (Holmes), Keaton pulls off the successful pilfering of the old, untraceable cash and starts living large naturally to the tune of “Money (That’s What I Want)”.

The film begins promisingly as the perpetrators are being interviewed presumably after the gig is up (the film is told in flashback). The perspective on the crime is much more interesting than the crime and its subsequent backlash.

Director Callie Khouri (who most famously wrote “Thelma & Louise”) almost seems to be making two films: a statement about the lower-middle class struggle (especially for women) in connection with the American dream and a mishmash star vehicle. Each end of this spectrum bogs down the other.

Katie Holmes in “Mad Money”. Photo credit: IMDb

The stars themselves have trouble with the material. Holmes – for all her riffing on the flighty, living in a trailer white trash – in real life could have gotten a job as a model especially with her $300 hairdo.

Keaton seemed ill at ease and totally bogus as a janitor despite the plot point that got her there.

Latifah is closest to the look and essence of a single mother in a housing project. Still, her saintly turn of “I’m doing it for my boys” justification is pandering at best.

That type of motivation was another problem with the film. The reluctance to expose naked human greed meant that all the characters were given convenient excuses for their stealing. Keaton wants to clear her debts, Latifah wants her kids to get into the right schools, a security guard has a sick mother, etc. Even the dim bulb husband of Holmes kept his job at a meat-packing plant.

It was the ending that really brought the proceedings to a deadly halt. Again, there were some interesting turns as the caper unravels, but unfortunately the filmmakers or the studio decided that there can be no unhappy endings with this star power. It does a severe disservice to logic.

You can give this to the birds and bees.

By PATRICK McDONALD Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com