Posted: 07/18/2000

Where the Money Is

(2000)

by Wayne Case

The trailers look a little flat…but Wayne pegs this one as enjoyable and worth a look.

What a pleasant surprise! Based on weak early reviews, negative buzzand a thoroughly annoying trailer, I had low expectations. But I was quite pleased to find Where The Money Is to be an enjoyable low-key caper comedy. The trailer did give hints that I might enjoy the cast and the situation, but its irritating music seems to have come straight from the earlier Polygram Filmed Entertainment atrocity, Very Bad Things. Fortunately, the music in this film was written by composer Mark Isham (October Sky, Rules Of Engagement), and is quite appropriate and complimentary for the on-screen activities. (I always hate it when a trailer obviously tries to “pump-up” the visuals with a loud, unrelenting soundtrack.)

Legend has it that the infamous thief, Willie Sutton, once answered that the reason he robbed banks was that “that’s where the money is!” Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino and Dermot Mulroney choose the cash cargo of an armored truck rather than a bank, but their goal is that same… ill gotten wealth! Newman plays a former master thief who is in prison. At the start of the film, he fakes a stroke and is sent to a rehabilitation facility where Fiorentino works as a nurse. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Dermot Mulroney, but has become bored. She soon figures out that Newman is faking his condition so that he’ll have a better opportunity to escape and she convinces him to help her make some quick money. Husband Mulroney soon joins in. The bulk of the film concerns the caper.

While I have always liked Paul Newman and enjoyed his work, I was uncomfortable with him in Twilight. I just didn’t think he looked or acted appropriately for his age and/or the age of the character. Where The Money Is provides a vehicle that points him in the right direction even though it won’t join his list of major accomplishments such as Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Harper, The Hustler, The Long Hot Summer, Cool Hand Luke, and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. His character here suggests what Butch Cassidy may well have become had he not gone off to Bolivia. This Butch Cassidy connection in our memory banks helps us believe that he could mastermind and help execute such a heist.

Other than in her award worthy turn in The Last Seduction, this is my favorite work ever from Linda Fiorentino. I sincerely hope that this gets her cast in stronger vehicles. I thought she was weak in Jade and very bad in Dogma. Her interaction with both Newman and Mulroney here is quite believable and it seems effortless. I’d love to see her do some good film noir or thrillers similar to Basic Instinct, Body Heat, or Sorry, Wrong Number but, clearly, she needs the right director.

Dermot Mulroney is one of my personal favorites. I particularly liked him in Copycat, How To Make An American Quilt, Staying Together and Longtime Companion. I suspect that he is just one good part away from becoming a big star, and was disappointed that My Best Friend’s Wedding wasn’t his breakthrough. (Rupert Everett’s flash stole what Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz didn’t hijack in that one!) This time, clearly, he is in good shape and is likeable in a “good ole boy” way. I’d like to see him co-star with his wife, Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) in a successful mainstream film where they both look good. They were both in Survival Quest (1989), Living In Oblivion (1995), and Box Of Moonlight (1996) but I don’t think they even had a scene together in the latter and I don’t remember the other two well enough to comment.

British director Marek Kanievska (Less Than Zero, Another Country), and writer E. Max Fry (Something Wild) do good work here and don’t force the material. I have positive recollections of Another Country and Something Wild is in my top 100 favorite films of all time. Maybe my fondness for this project isn’t that much of a surprise after all.

Yes, the pace is leisurely, but appropriately so and I’m delighted to report that the running time is under 100 minutes. Don’t expect to be blown away, but there some nice smiles and other pleasures to savor in Where The Money Is.

Wayne Case works in the film industry in Hollywood, and still can’t help himself—he loves the movies!

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