MAD MONEY: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
When her husband (Ted Danson) faces financial ruin, Bridget (Diane Keaton) is forced to take a menial job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas. There she gets the idea to rob the bank and approaches the money shredder, Nina (Queen Latifah), and 'cart girl' Jackie (Katie Holmes) and persuades them to help her.

Review by Louise Keller:
Crime has never been so contagious as in Mad Money, a madcap heist movie with a delectable cast who realise that while money can't buy happiness, it sure as hell can buy everything else. Diane Keaton's Bridget gets the idea when she is shopping. Things are tough; she is working as a janitor in a bank and there's all this money being shredded that could be put to better use! It's not like stealing at all, it's more like recycling, she says when she has worked out the perfect system to solve their financial problems. Directed by Callie Khouri, who penned Thelma and Louise, this breezy and entertaining comedy is as much fun as its name implies.

We know from the very start that they get caught. The opening scenes show Ted Danson's Don Cardigan stuffing wads of green notes down the loo. But then the story takes us back to the very beginning when we learn that Bridget and hubby Don are struggling financially. 'We're all capable of anything,' we hear and once the seed has begun to germinate in Bridget's mind ('wanting is the root of all needing stuff'), she susses out the back corridors of the bank and targets Nina (Queen Latifah) in the money shredding department and flaky cart girl, Jackie (Katie Holmes) as accomplices. We quickly understand why each girl plays an integral part in the plan and watch with glee as the carefully laid plan is executed - again and again. 'I bet Victoria never had this particular secret,' Latifah's Nina says as she stuffs money in her underwear.

It's a funny script and there are surprises all along the dollar-strewn way. Danson, as her husband, is a real scene stealer: 'Forgive me for getting insufficient kicks when someone I'm married to commits a felony,' and insists on keeping the engine running when she makes a deposit of the dubiously acquired dollars into their bank. We spend the whole film wondering how it is going to go wrong. There are additional ingredients that whet our appetite. Nina hasn't had sex for seven years ('it's just like riding a bike, only upside down'). It so happens that the attractive security guard finds her attractive. There's sex in the closet, keys down the drain, money in the underwear, rings down the toilet. The problems then start to change. It now becomes a matter of where to put the money and how to get rid of it. This is a helluva ride with a great cast that keeps us engrossed and in stitches throughout this escapist, fun madness.

Published November 27, 2008