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Where the Money Is (14-Apr-2000)
Director: Marek Kanievska Writers: Carroll Cartwright; E. Max Frye; Topper Lilien Keywords: Crime
REVIEWS Review by Walter Frith (posted on 7-Jun-2007) Paul Newman
has announced that he will soon retire from the medium of film. He says
he wants to make a couple of more films and will retire sometime in
2001. He also mentioned that he would like to do another film with his
wife Joanne Woodward and that would be a great swan song in the career
of the second greatest actor in the history of American cinema, behind
Al Pacino. Newman has been nominated for the Oscar eight times as an
actor and has also received a nomination for producing 1968's 'Rachel,
Rachel', which he also directed. Newman owns three awards from the
Academy, for best actor in 1986's 'The Color of Money', an honorary
Oscar for his entire body of work and the Jean Hersholt humanitarian
award for his charitable efforts. Newman is a stand up guy, a great
role model for upcoming actors and lives the kind of clean Hollywood
lifestyle others could take a lesson from. Newman is 75 and can still
act with the best of them. His part in 'Where the Money Is' makes
Newman look semi-retired and his work in the film, with all due
respect, is something he could have made more of it but he is still
fine nevertheless. There's are two movies I kept thinking of while
watching 'Where the Money Is'. The first one is entitled 'The Brink's
Job' from 1978 and 'The In-Laws' in 1979, both starring actor Peter
Falk. 'The Brink's Job' is sort of self explanatory by the nature of
its title and is a better look at an armoured car robbery story and is
based on a true story about a famous 1950 Brink's caper that rocked the
city of Boston. 'Where the Money Is' is a docile attempt to weave a
somewhat interesting plot about an armoured car robbery with the lives
of those wishing for something better by collecting the loot from it.
The film is also a cake walk for Newman, and the rest of the cast for
that matter. This film probably would have gone straight to video if it
wasn't for the charismatic performance by Newman who acts as the anchor
for this movie and saves all of those in front of and behind the camera
from being totally forgotten. It tells the story of a convicted bank
robber named Henry Manning (Paul Newman) who is living in a nursing
home and he reportedly has suffered a stroke and is unresponsive to
anything around him. Nurse Carol Ann McKay (Linda Fiorentino) believes
that given the past of this colourful criminal that he's faking his
ailment and she tries to prove it. She tries to turn on the charm by
doing things like sitting on Henry's lap etc, etc. After getting
desperate, Carol indeed proves that Henry is faking his condition by
throwing him and his wheelchair for a special kind of ride. Carol wants
to liven up her marriage by going along on a robbery caper with Henry
and her husband Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) agrees, reluctantly, to go
along with the robbery caper and together, this threesome embark on a
night of posing as armoured car guards and heist a truck and carry out
robberies by making merchants think they're the real thing, just
filling in for the evening and their uniforms and acts of persuasion
are very convincing. The problem with 'Where the Money Is' is that it
has no edge. It moves along well but has the look of a television movie
and really has no excitement. It's not that it was intended that way
but director Marek Kanievska and writers E. Max Frye, Topper Lilien and
Carroll Cartwright (why did it take three people to write this?) have
made a genteel type of movie that you can take your grandparents to see
in proud fashion on a Sunday afternoon with little or few people in the
theatre to bother you. Visit FILM FOLLOW-UP by Walter Frith
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