No doubt all of the people who might have normally elected to see Mad Money opted to take their children to see Hannah Montana last night. I don’t need to wait until the weekend is over to know that Hannah Montana was the top grossing film. The lobby of the movie theatre had a line full of cackling young ladies waiting to see their heroine, or at least cable TV friend, Hannah Montana. Britney, Raven, Lindsey, and Jamie Lynn move over cause Miley Cyrus is having her reign as the pre-teen/teen queen. Mad Money? That is what the daughter of country singer Billy Rae Cyrus is going to rake in from this movie.
Mad Money, starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Ten Danson and Katie Holmes is just another Hollywood flick. Since we haven’t seen Mrs. Tom Cruise in a while outside of austere & primped paparazzi posings, it was refreshing to see her acting again. I don’t think there will be any Golden Globes or Oscars ascribed to this picture unless it is for “Best Dingbattish Performance from a Re-entry Actress”, in which case Tom will have to make some space in their awards room for Mrs. Cruise’s statute.
Diane Keaton plays the desperate fru-fru upper middle class housewife (Bridget Cardigan) who falls upon hard times and has to be-little herself to toilet-bowl cleaning at the opportune Federal Reserve. Necessity is the mother of invention. In an inverse yet decrepit application of this maxim, a precipice is sure to follow. Keaton’s character becomes the mastermind who convinces her co-conspirators, played by Latifah and Katie (Nina Brewster and Jackie Truman, respectively), to embezzle old dirty money that technically doesn’t exist. There isn’t any major harm in stealing money to help save the family home, provide a better life and education for a single mother, and acquire things normal working class people will never be able to afford–especially when the cash is money that is removed from the system. Ted Danson (Don Cardigan) plays a displaced corporate executive who joins the subterfuge along with the others’ love interests, and micro-manages the entire debacle. The everyday charlatans enjoy the benefits of their thievery to surpass their original goals in a film aura 10 notches shy of the pretentious intensity in Oceans 11-13, but 5 notches above a King’s Ransom type film. The free cash is too good for the syndicate to stop stealing when their so-called needs are met. They keep pilfering and gratuitously follow the paths that great crooks have set before them–get busted. Of course, they are able to legally hoodwink their way out of the charges because of lack of evidence. Quandary moments of worry are soon placated for there is no eventual dismay. The kingpin Bridget Cardigan had the wherewithal to hide a boatload of cash for the thieves to divide and live happily ever after.
To the deeply indebted, easily influenced, tired of working, seem to never get ahead folks, and baby-step criminals, do not see this movie. I kept laughing throughout the movie, not only because it was humorous, but more-so because of the reaction I witnessed. A dear friend and fervent Christian admitted that the movie provoked her to think of ways to get money without having to pay any consequences. She immediately recognized that this was only a thought pattern, but a thought pattern it was nonetheless. Imagine the vulnerability and subtle credence a young person might feel after watching ANOTHER flick that highlights crime, corruption, greed, embezzlement, beating the system, getting ahead at any cost, ungodly self-fulfillment, and an unwillingness to suffer. So from the perspective of a Christian, there was no universally good moral to this picture, other than re-affirming the principle that the love of money is the root of all evil.
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