Mad Money

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes may seem an unlikely trio of thieves, but their onscreen chemistry is as effective as the scheme they concoct to smuggle money out of the Federal Reserve Bank where they work in the clever and fast-paced caper comedy "Mad Money" (Overture).

Bridget Cardigan (Keaton) is a middle-class Kansas City housewife whose husband, Don (Ted Danson), has just been downsized, leaving them in debt and forced to sell their luxurious house. A comparative lit major, Bridget is ill-equipped for an office job, so she accepts the position of cleaning lady for the bank.

She's awestruck by the stacks of money around her, and especially the thousands of dollars of worn bills daily shredded by Nina Brewster (Latifah), a single mom with two young boys to support. Bridget corners Nina in the parking lot one afternoon, and persuades her that it would be easy to purloin some of that cash before it's destroyed.

Playing on Nina's heartfelt desire to make a better life for her sons, Bridget gets Nina to sign on, as does Jackie, a dippy but clever young woman (Holmes) who, like Bridget, is in debt.

They devise a seemingly foolproof plan, despite the rigid system proudly overseen by security head Glover (Stephen Root), and the vigilance of the two guards who check everyone's bags at the end of each working day; one of the latter, Barry (Roger Cross), is clearly sweet on Nina.

They plan to steal until they have enough money for their individual needs: the Cardigans keeping their house and clearing their debt, Nina enrolling her boys in a good school and moving to a better neighborhood, and Jackie improving the lot of her trailer-park life with her meat-packing-worker husband, Bob Truman (Adam Rothenberg).

Once they get going, Bridget decides she doesn't want to stop, having rationalized their actions as mere recycling of bills slated for destruction anyway. Nina and Jackie acquiesce, and before long they have the authorities on their trail.

The time-honored conventions of heist films, and the lighthearted "Ocean's Eleven"-ish tone throughout outweigh elements that would be morally problematic if viewed from a strictly literal point of view. On the other hand, Nina is shown to be a loving mom who has brought her kids up to do the right thing, and when romance comes her way via Barry (a devoted caregiver to his mother, by the way), their bond is shown to transcend the physical. Jackie later makes an admirable sacrifice when they are all eventually apprehended.

Less felicitous is the enthusiasm with which Bridget and Jackie had urged Nina to seduce Barry when he discovers their plot, assuming that if she sleeps with him he'll keep their secret.

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The moral and emotional consequences of their scheme are not ignored, though ultimate retribution is (slight spoiler) undercut by a final plot twist.

The stars make a surprisingly effective and appealing team, and there's assured direction from Callie Khouri working from Glenn Gers' smart script, adapted from a British TV film, "Hot Money."

The film contains some crude expletives, crass expressions, one use of profanity, mild sexual talk and innuendo, an implied nonmarital encounter and a brief drug reference. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops