Mad Money

Mad Money (Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Ted Danson) — Contrived, unbelievable, stupid, immature, and sophomoric, this comedy is a waste of some good talent.  Even Katie Holmes deserves better and she might give the best performance among the three female stars.  For those who care, you’ve seen the premise in the trailers.  Three low-level workers in the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve plot to steal part of the $1 million destroyed each day.  Who would miss it anyhow?  The mastermind is Keaton’s character, a housewife forced back into the workforce by her husband’s (Ted Danson, perhaps the best thing in the movie) layoff.  She devises a plan using a simple Master padlock and convinces single mother Latifah and wild child Holmes into the scheme.  As they say, “merry mix-ups” occur (or not-so-merry), mostly in the rest room.  Indeed, this allegedly goes on for 3 years before a bank examiner shows up.  The rest is just ludicrous.  Anyhow, this is the second God-awful movie in a row for Diane Keaton (the other, Because I Said So, made my Worst Of list from 2007).  Even Julie didn’t say this one was “cute.”