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WHERE THE MONEY IS Send This Review to a Friend
One only has to see the name Paul Newman in the cast to surmise that there'll be something worthwhile about a film. "Where the Money Is" may only be a modest caper film, but with Newman in the cast, it soars above its ingredients. Add Linda Fiorentino and there are sparks above and beyond what the script allows.
The set up is nifty. Newman plays Henry, a con in prison for his exploits as a bank robber. He has had a stroke, or so it seems, and, paralyzed and wheel-chair bound, he is sent to a nursing home to recuperate. Fiorentino plays Carol, a nurse, who has her suspicions. She goes to great lengths to test whether he is really immobilized. Of course, he isn't, but he stubbornly won't show it even when she sits on his lap and gives him her best wiggles. Later he tells her that if she thought that after all his rehearsing in prison a little lap dance would work, she was mistaken. Carol has to resort to a more drastic tactic.
Once having caused him to reveal his fakery, Carol is in a position to get in on his latest robbery scheme. She and her husband Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) become his cohorts with a promised split in his daring plan to hijack an armored truck and make the rounds picking up money as if they were employees of the company. But what would a caper film be without complications?
Marek Kanievska keeps a balance between action and whimsy in working with a three-writer screenplay (by E. Max Frye, Topper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright), but it is the charisma of the stars that does the rest. Newman is enjoyable to watch whether paralyzed or mobile, and Fiorentino is wickedly entertaining as a sexy, cold-blooded schemer. A USA Films release.
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