MILK MONEY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
MILK MONEY has a lot going for it. It has two stars I like, Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris, and has an interesting plot. If you have seen the trailers, you know it has a lot of good comedy.
On the other hand, this is a schizophrenic movie. It can not make up its mind if it is a movie for the early teen set or its target audience is grownups. Every time the script starts to click in one direction, it stops entirely and switches. You get to like the movie and you start laughing, and then it enters another slump almost as if it is scared to follow through with the courage of its convictions in either direction.
The movie is about a little boy, well played by Michael Carter, and his 7th grade friends. They hire a hooker, played poorly by Melaine Griffith. Carter tells his Dad, played okay by Ed Harris, that Griffith is their math tutor. There is then a gag that runs through almost all of the show where Harris talks to Griffith about her profession thinking she is a math tutor while she thinks he knows she is a hooker. This part of the plot works very well and produces a lot of laughs.
Notice in the show that Harris is shorter than Griffith. This is not unusual, but normally, they are careful with the camerawork to mask the difference by the direction of the shots. Here it is okay to be a shorter man. Even the kids in the show have girlfriends taller than them. I especially liked this aspect being to some extent a height challenged male.
Much of the show is devoted to a romance between Harris and Griffith which is not played in a believable fashion, and there is no real chemistry between them. There is another boring and unnecessary subplot about bad guys wanting to find Griffith. This subplot seems to be from another movie and to have gotten stuck in this script by mistake.
Worst of all is the depiction of what it is like to be a single Dad. It depicts cliches of single Daddydom whereby the son and Dad microwave TV dinners for 100% of their meals and always race, stopwatch style, to see who can gobble down their dinners the fastest. The Daddy has no clue on how to find a woman to date until the kid brings him one. Oh yes, and of course, the Dad is also an environmentalist trying to save part of the world. Chaining himself to his car to save a swamp is certainly the low point of the movie.
I had a pretty good time at the movie since much of the comedy part did work, but I should point out that if you have seen the trailers, you have seen half of the jokes already. I can not bring myself to actually recommend MILK MONEY, and I give it **. It runs 1:50 and is rated PG-13 for a little bit of profanity. Actually, I think that kids around the 7th grade area would probably get a kick out of the show and for that age group alone, I would give it a mild thumbs up.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: September 2, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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