Bad phoney

Imagine 'Ocean's Eleven' without the complex plot, nifty gadgets and snappy dialogue; change the gender of the leads; aim it at a book club audience; and you end up with something that vaguely resembles 'Mad Money'.

The film opens with the promise of something interesting when a calm and seemingly callous Diane Keaton states that "crime is contagious". Now there is a theme worth exploring. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen in this movie, which quickly reverts to a rather mundane bank-robbery plot spearheaded by an increasingly ditzy Keaton.

Bridget Cardigan (Keaton) is thrown into a state of shock when her husband Don (Ted Danson) loses his job and with it their comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle. Forced to work for the first time in years, Bridget can only get a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank (another missed, but potentially interesting story).

Forced to watch millions of 'worn' dollars being shredded every day as she takes home her paltry wages, Bridget hatches a plan to thwart the bank's air-tight security system. In a completely believable scenario, this housewife with no heist experience (and frankly a questionable IQ), devises the plan as she stares idly at a lock and a dancing trash removal lady.

Without stopping to think that they may rat her out Bridget approaches single mom Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah), the money-shredding lady, and Jackie Truman (Katie Holmes), the spacey dancing trash lady, to enlist them in her devious plan. Without too much hesitation (crime is contagious) the two agree to become bank robbers.

Soon the three are pilfering the destined-to-be-destroyed cash with reckless abandon, smuggling it out in their oversized bras and panties. Once they have met their fairly modest aspirations — getting out of debt, putting kids through school etc — they just keep going. Ah yes, the most noble motivator of them all — greed. Yet again, this could have been a far more interesting movie.

As everyone knows, the first rule of stealing stuff is that once you get too greedy, you get caught… or do you?

Callie Khouri ('Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood') has done herself and women a disservice by producing a poor imitation film in this traditionally male genre. Although Keaton, Latifah and Holmes do a tolerable job, 'Mad Money' does little to break free of stereotypes or even entertain. You would be mad to spend your money on a movie ticket when you can catch it on DVD.