Tagline: Think green.
Don and Bridget Cardigan’s upper middle class lifestyle is threatened since Don, who has been out of work for a year, seems to have given up looking for a job, and housewife Bridget has been out of the workforce for most of her life. They are close to $300,000 in debt. Finding out this information, Bridget comes to the conclusion that she needs to get a job – any job – that at least provides them with some benefits. She reluctantly takes a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Almost immediately, Bridget is enthralled with all the old worn out money that is being shredded. She comes up with a plan to get her old lifestyle back by stealing much of that money, which she believes is an easy job since the locks used on the money carts are standard equipment and as she notices that no one ever checks the garbage as she goes about her work. Her plan needs the cooperation of one person who works the shredder and one person who pushes the carts of money. The two people she co-opts are single mom Nina Brewster and diabetic, trailer living and constant music listening Jackie Truman.
Jackie is easy to convince, but Nina is only convinced when Bridget brings it to her attention that the money would allow her to provide a better education to her two bright sons. Nina vows to kill Bridget if she ever loses her children because of this scheme. As the three woman progress with the plan, it is threatened by: the bank’s head of security, a man named Glover, who believes it is impossible to steal money from the reserve; another security guard at the reserve named Barry who seems to be attracted to Nina; Jackie’s working class husband Bob who is not used to having money; Don, a conservative man who can’t understand being on the wrong side of the law; and Bridget herself who seems to be increasingly focused on getting more and more money with no end in sight, which seems to be diverging from the priorities of her two accomplices.
Mad Money is a 2008 American comedy-crime film starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, Roger Cross, Adam Rothenberg, Finesse Mitchell, Meagen Fay, Denise Lee, Christopher McDonald, Morgana Shaw, and directed by Callie Khouri. It is loosely based on the 2001 British film Hot Money.
The film debuted in fifth place at the box office on its opening day in the United States, with a return of US$2.3 million from 2,470 screens. Reuters referred to this return as a “modest” result for the film’s opening day. By the end of its opening weekend, Mad Money had slipped to seventh place, with a weekend take of $7.7 million. Writing for Rotten Tomatoes, Gitesh Pandya noted that the opening weekend per theater revenue “averaged a not-so-impressive $3,126.” amNewYork called the film’s opening weekend return “a big flop at the box office,” and the New Zealand Herald described it as “a box-office flop”
Mad Money (2008)
Directed by: Callie Khouri
Starring: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, Roger Cross, Adam Rothenberg, Finesse Mitchell, Meagen Fay, Denise Lee, Christopher McDonald, Morgana Shaw
Screenplay by: Glenn Gers
Production Design by: Brent Thomas
Cinematography by: John Bailey
Film Editing by: Wendy Greene Bricmont
Costume Design by: Susie DeSanto
Set Decoration by: Vera Mills
Art Direction by: Kevin Hardison
Music by: Martin Davich, James Newton Howard
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material and language, and brief drug references.
Distributed by: Overture Films
Release Date: January 18, 2008
Visits: 85
