WHERE THE MONEY IS (USA Films) Starring: Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, Dermot Mulroney. Screenplay: E. Max Frye and Topper Lillien & Carroll Cartwright. Producers: Ridley Scott, Charles Weinstock, Chris Zarpas and Christopher Dorr. Director: Marek Kanievska. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, sexual situations, adult themes) Running Time: 89 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
At the age of 75, Paul Newman is still one of the sneakiest, most thoroughly professional actors in films. His manner is so relaxed and his charisma so undeniable that it's easy to forget how good he is at what he does; if Newman has ever mailed in a performance, I'd like to know what it was. I find it hard not to get enthused about a caper film like WHERE THE MONEY IS when I know that Newman is in the lead role. After all, no actor has ever done a better job than Newman of bringing life and charm to criminals (BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID, COOL HAND LUKE), broken-down has-beens (SLAP SHOT, THE VERDICT) and slick hustlers (THE STING, THE COLOR OF MONEY). World-weary intelligence fits him like Spandex.
It's my sad duty to report that there's more weary than world-weary to WHERE THE MONEY IS, though you can hardly blame Newman for its failings. He plays Henry Manning, a veteran bank robber who finds himself transferred from jail to a nursing home after he suffers a severe stroke. Assigned to his care is Carol Ann McKay (Linda Fiorentino), a nurse and former prom queen whose life and marriage to former prom king Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) never turned out like she hoped. Then Carol begins to suspect that Henry has faked his stroke symptoms to get out of prison, and eventually she forces Henry to show his true colors. Though Henry thinks at first that Carol plans to turn him in or blackmail him, she actually has other plans in mind -- specifically, she hopes Henry will teach her the tricks of the thieving trade.
WHERE THE MONEY IS gets off to a kicky start with a flashback prologue of Carol and Wayne racing recklessly away from their prom, set to The Cars' infectious 1983 hit "You Might Think." The script (co-scripted by E. Max Frye from his original story) sets up Carol as a live wire shorted out by routine, and Fiorentino does a more than capable job of giving her a spark (she's one of the few actresses who approaches Newman in the world-weary intelligence department). As the film peeks into Carol's marriage to Wayne, it begins to set up a character study of a woman driven to ridiculous lengths by the desire to add some excitement to her mundane life.
And it's a very, very stupid idea. WHERE THE MONEY IS, it should be reiterated, has a caper at its core -- an armored car heist executed by Henry, Carol and Wayne. It's an effective enough centerpiece, but it has virtually nothing to do with the rest of the movie. In fact, while the heist sequence is far from breathtaking in its execution -- director Marek Kanievska appears to have a philosophical objection to making the film interesting to watch on a minute-to-minute basis -- it only makes the central issue of Carol's mid-life crisis seem utterly inconsequential. There's nothing wrong with adding some character to a plot-driven caper structure, but that's not what WHERE THE MONEY IS does. It actually adds more plot -- in the form of Wayne's jealous streak, Carol's attempts to help free Henry, etc. The film pretends it's character-based just long enough to distract from the main story, then ties up everything so quickly you wonder if there were people involved at all.
The horrible consequence of this approach is that Newman is almost completely wasted. It's not so much that his character spends the first twenty minutes with his face frozen into a rictus, but that no one seems to know what to do with him once Henry does come to life. He still snaps off his dialogue with a seen-it-all rasp, and he lets those famous blue eyes dart and speak when no other part of his body is capable. WHERE THE MONEY IS builds a charge of potential energy from his mere presence. It rarely, however, finds an effective way to release that energy. Here he talks his way out of an encounter with a pair of cops; there he pulls a fast one on a slimy orderly. For the rest of the film he just waits for a reason to be there. It's hard to figure what he saw in the script, since WHERE THE MONEY IS theoretically is more about Carol than it is about Henry. Newman has earned better in his 50 year career than being left to support an ineffectual caper, just because that's where the money is.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 pickled capers: 4.
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