![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/w/wherethemoneyis.jpg)
Where the Money Is
Where the Money Is, a low-wattage heist film, continues the trend of movies about essentially good people getting away with robbery. The plot is straightforward — rest-home nurse (Linda Fiorentino) deduces that a recent patient (Paul Newman), just transferred from prison due to a stroke, is faking it to escape. Her boyfriend (Dermot Mulroney) is skeptical, but when she finally uncovers the bank robber, it's because she wants to commit crimes with him and escape her small-town blues. Her boyfriend reluctantly goes along, and they engage in a slightly clever if suspenseless armored-car heist (the trick of which is that they take over for the actual drivers). It's a flat and unengaging affair, and the finale invites us to be pleased by blatant larceny, which is presented as a triumph of the human spirit over small-town constrictions — rather than, say, lazy and cruel acts of social disequilibrium. And yes, we are invited by credited screenwriters E. Max Frye (Palmetto), Topper Lilien, and Carroll Cartwright, as well as by director Marek Kanievska (Another Country), to be pleased by this kind of stuff. Shot in Montreal, Where the Money Is made $5.6 million upon release in 2000, not getting anywhere near its $18 million budget. USA's DVD edition offers a clean anamorphic transfer (1.78:1), with audio in DD 5.1 or Dolby 2.0 Surround. Supplements include the full-frame theatrical trailer (which has an unusual design and is fairly effective, if still too much of a spoiler), and bios/filmographies of the main cast and the director. The complete website is also available as DVD-ROM content. Keep-case.
—Kerry Fall
