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Mad Money
Overture Films


6.4

based on 31 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 13 votes
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FILM:

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sexual material and language, and brief drug references

Starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, and Ted Danson

Bridget Cardigan is forced to get a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank after her corporate husband is downsized from his job. The one-time suburban mom soon discovers she has more in common with her new co-workers than she thought. She forges an unexpected bond with Nina, a hard-working single mom with two kids, and Jackie, an exuberant free spirit with nothing to lose. Caught up in a system that underestimates their talents and keeps their dreams just out of reach, Bridget, Nina and Jackie set out to even the score. After a lifetime of playing by the rules, the three devise a plan to smuggle soon-to-be destroyed currency out of the supposedly airtight Reserve. As the unlikely crime syndicate amasses piles of cash, it looks like they have pulled off the perfect crime—until a minor misstep alerts the authorities. With more money than they know what to do with, the women are pushed to the limits of their ingenuity to stay one step ahead of the law. (Overture Films)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Crime \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Terry Winsor (screenplay "Hot Money") Neil McKay (screenplay "Hot Money") John Mister (earlier screenplay) Glenn Gers
DIRECTED BY:	Callie Khouri
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 13, 2008 Theatrical: January 18, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Latifah coasts on grit and verve, and Holmes has a goggle-eyed sweetness, but it's Keaton who rules.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Moviegoers will come up empty with Mad Money. This lifeless comedy and uninventive caper feels as if it were cobbled together at a studio's obligatory consciousness-raising diversity seminar.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

This is the feistiest Hollywood movie about American women and their thankless jobs since "9 to 5."

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

While it's all so breezy and zippy and girl-power peppy, it's Keaton who makes Mad Money worth a few bucks.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The results are moderately entertaining, but the humor is broad and shallow; the film has none of the irony, bite or wit of its predecessor; and the script (by Glenn Gers) seems so calculated to appeal to every conceivable female demographic that it always feels contrived.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The pleasures of this slight caper film are strictly small-screen, as three talented actresses walk through quaint roles before they hurry on to the next project.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A caper comedy with some definite problems.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Keaton and Ted Danson, who plays her husband, Don, are the comedic bright spot in the movie, not least because they are ridiculous.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

If you're going to make a heist picture, then at least have the decency to make the heist itself interesting. Otherwise, do like Tarantino did in "Reservoir Dogs" and just skip it altogether.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A likable and completely dispensable heist film starring two of the deftest comedians working (Keaton and Latifah), the film from Callie Khouri is itself an American retread of the British caper telefilm "Hot Money."

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Move over, Gordon Gecko: The new poster boy for American greed in the movies isn’t a silver-tongued corporate hustler with pomaded hair and a closet full of $10,000 suits. In fact, the new poster boy for American greed in the movies isn’t a boy at all. I know you won’t believe me when I tell you, but you’ve been replaced by Diane Keaton.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Everyone in the cast treads water, acting-wise -- there's nothing else to do -- except for Latifah, who brings passion to her work.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Mad Money is a comedy caper where the caper's not interesting and the comedy's not funny.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Once the star of some of the finest movies of the '70s and '80s, Keaton has begun making just this kind of chick-flick comedy with increasing regularity at least since 1996's "The First Wives Club," and it's gotten so she's not even trying to get into character anymore.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

In the breezy, amoral heist comedy Mad Money, “Fun With Dick and Jane” meets “9 to 5” on the way to recession.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Possesses its share of modest laughs, many of them delivered by Ted Danson as Bridget's bemused husband. But director Callie Khouri (best known for writing "Thelma & Louise") doesn't bring the dash needed to make this a comic heist on a par with "Ocean's Eleven."

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The pocketing of tired bills headed for the shredder, the producing of tired movies headed for the theatre -- it's all just recycling.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

As a comedy, it relies on Keaton and Latifah playing the same characters they always play, and Holmes overcompensating by switching into bug-eyed manic-comedienne mode. Her performance is part Lucille Ball, part overcaffeinated chicken, and it deserves some credit for daring, but none for execution.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The movie is not so much horrible as it is drab -- from its lazy plotting to its uninspired yuks to its cop-out ending to its relentlessly yellow-brown sets. "Mad Money" does little more than take up space, and you will be two hours closer to the grave when you leave the theater.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The picture has no legs, no style, no sense of movement other than the meandering, dawdling kind.

Film Threat Felix Vasques Jr.

The best way to describe Callie Khouri’s Mad Money is as “Ocean’s Eleven” if it were geared to the drones at the Oprah Winfrey book club.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

If the movie gets by, as it surely will during the current entertainment drought, most of the credit should go to a couple of performers (Latifah/Keaton) who come from different traditions, yet share a gift for breathing life into moribund material.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Improbable and generally unfunny comedy.

Variety Justin Chang

Banking on the appealing chemistry of Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah -- with co-star Katie Holmes awkwardly upsetting the balance -- this strained heist comedy about three cash-strapped femmes is watchable enough for a few reels, but lacks the requisite wit and amoral energy to capitalize on its get-rich-quick premise.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Diane Keaton--now there’s a trouper for you. She will not be caught giving less than 110 percent, even in a drab little heist comedy.

Premiere Deborah Day

Affable Ted Danson makes few ripples as Bridget's husband Don; while Roger Cross and Adam Rothenberg also glide through the film in their minor "significant other" roles to Nina and Jackie, respectively.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Why would so many accomplished women waste their time and talents on a movie as counterfeit as Mad Money?

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Mad Money is astonishingly casual for a movie about three service workers who steal millions from a Federal Reserve Bank. There is little suspense, no true danger; their plan is simple, the complications are few, and they don't get excited much beyond some high-fives and hugs and giggles.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The best thing you can say about Mad Money is that it has a good cast. The worst thing you can say about it is that the cast is extremely ill-used.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This lame comedy was adapted from a recent British TV movie, though its (quite literal) money shots of the women squealing and hurling cash in the air reminded me of 80s greed capers like "Trading Places" and "A Fish Called Wanda."

New York Post Kyle Smith

Holmes, with Alice Cooper hair and crazy Jim Carrey eyes, looks terrible and acts worse, unless this movie is unintentionally a lobotomy documentary. Whatever could have happened to her in the last couple of years to zap the talent out of her like this?

The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lili S. gave it a0:
Awful is a compliment for this movie!

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Mad Money Overture Films

Mad Money
Overture Films