“One for the Money” is the story of a divorced Jersey Girl who’s been fired from her job and facing an impending financial crisis. In order to earn money, she turns to her cousin’s bail bonds business, hoping for a filing job. When she finds out that one of her ex-flames has a large bounty out, what she winds up doing instead is becoming a bounty hunter.
It’s more than a little implausible, as are many, many of the situations within the movie. It’s also clichéd and insubstantial. On the plus side though, it’s lighthearted and doesn’t try to do too much. The result is a flick that isn’t very highly recommendable, but wasn’t exactly painful to sit through, either.
Katherine Heigl plays Stephanie Plum, a divorcée from Jersey who just lost her department store job. Her car has been repossessed and she’s facing a future that includes frequently going home to eat with her annoying parents. As luck would have it, her cousin runs a bail bonds shop and needs clerical help. Or so she thought. Upon arrival, the temp clerical work has dried up, and all that’s left is recovery agent work. Luckily for her (again) one of the biggest bounties available is on one of her ex boyfriends.
Thus begins a tale of a plucky girl in way over her head who gets a boatload of breaks as she tries to break into the bounty hunting business. Of course, the situation escalates and spins out of control a bit, and she winds up in some genuine danger and things are much more serious than simply trying to bring her ex into custody. It’s also the framework for a romantic/comedic relationship where she’s hunting her ex, yet he’s helping her unravel the crime with which he’s been charged (he’s innocent, of course), and they both have moments where they flirt with each other, then turn on each other… that sort of thing. Along the way, she’s aided by a couple of sassy hookers and a sure handed pro (Daniel Sunjata).
It’s kind of like “Elmore Leonard Lite”, only watered down.
It’s a movie that doesn’t give you anything spectacular, but in return, it doesn’t ask a lot of the audience, either. The characters are each kind of colorful, but it’s a paint-by-numbers colorful. There’s some witty banter, but not a ton. There’s some fun moments, but not throughout. Probably worst of all the plotting is not very complex or intriguing, they’re pretty much relying on the audience to get behind the “snappy” romance between Heigl and co-star Jason O’Mara and have that carry the day. Which is… a bit difficult to rely on. Neither one of them is exactly backing the star power truck up to the loading dock.
Yet there’s a couple of moments here and there between the two of them, and enough mild humor interspersed throughout to make me feel like it was alright. It’s certainly no barn burner, it’s nothing to rush out to see based on my take. But if you had you’re heart set on it going in, you wont be disappointed or anything, I don’t think.
C
One quick note. As some of you may have seen me tweet earlier. I’ve seen that this movie is batting a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’d just like to say that this movie is nowhere near that bad. Bucky Larson got a 0%. If THIS movie winds up being the worst movie of 2012? I’m in for an easy year. A cake walk.
It’ll be interesting to see if the large Stephanie Plum novel fans will take the plunge with this. I’m not a reader of author Janet Evanovich’s character, but I find it surprising it’s batting 0 with Rotten Tomatoes. But then again, it’s January
. Rental for me, if that. Thanks.
That 0% is totally out of line. But I guess it just goes to symbolize that we read that score the wrong way regularly. All that says is that none of the critics who have seen it recommend it. They’re not necessarily giving it an F– like the 0% might indicate. (Of course, some probably are)
It’ll be “The Grey”s weekend. How big will yet to be seen. But I just got back from it, it was really good. Review to come!
Looking forward to it. ‘The Grey’ became my favorite Joe Carnahan film this weekend.
I can respect that.
Personally, I still go Narc (Love that flick) but that could change in time.
Well at least Katherine Heigl tried something
new with her hair. Perhaps the movie would
have been better if they combined it with the
diamond heist movie from this morning, maybe
added some references to the Lord of the Rings, some telekinesis and/or remote viewing
perhaps a bear in the background, lasers and some debauchery. That would have made it better.
“Well at least Katherine Heigl tried something new with her hair.”
LOL! Piggy… Thats funny.
It needed something. I dont know if it needed laser beams and debauchery, but as is, it was a little flat.
Well if not the worst of the year, it could easily serve as the number 1 implausible film of the year just for the Heigl as a bounty hunter premise alone!
Yeah, but she tries to flirt ‘em into jail. LOL Yeah, I dont know. They do alright with it. I dont want to hate on it too much, it’s just kind of like a USA Original Series level calibre movie, you know?
I didn’t hate myself for being a movie reviewer during it. ::shrugs::
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but have read the series. I’m on “Smokin’ Seventeen” now. If the movie is anything like the book(s), it has to be funny/entertaining. The books were ” laugh out loud reading “. Liked the books/liked your review. Plan to see the movie this week.
Awesome. Circle back and let us know what you think!!
The trailer seemed to point something somewhat different from Heigl (i.e. being less of the uptight bitch she’s been playing since Knocked Up) but I guess not… Well at least, it’s now 3% on Rotten Tomatoes ahah
Still not worth my time though.
No. It’s not.
Still think it should have like an RT in the 20s. I think its the fact that a lot of people hate her, and she’s definitely front and center here.
I think I’m seeing this tomorrow. I will now go with even lower expectations in the hopes of enjoying it more.
Thanks for this.
oh, and I just checked. RT has it at 3%
They do now, yeah. When I wrote it though, it was 0. So… it’s making its way to the top!
She did good after leaving Grey’s Anatomy, huh? She’s done a string of films which all look and sound exactly the same!
I loved her in Greys but the thought of watching any of her films fills me with fear.
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2012/01/star-market-revisited-is-it-over-for-katherine-heigl.html
Thanks to Cap to posting that over on Facebook. It’s an excellent read and a thourough analysis of her dying career…
Poor girl. She’s too young to have a dying career!
great article; the answer is like they stated come back in a movie people want to see, and based on her downward slide she may need to find that quality indie flick.
I did enjoy this One for the Money flick but only as a rental that felt like an afterschool special once you suspend disbelief of Heigl as a bounty hunter.
Yeah, exactly… been awhile since I wrote this, so I’m not exactly sure if I adequately expressed that. LOL
Enjoyable enough as fluff, but there’s some pretty major flaws if one were so inclined to go out looking to beat them up.