It’s been awhile, but we’re going to slide right past that and jump into this delightful treat of a movie (but let me assure you, I do see good movies now and then).
The first phrase that comes to mind when thinking of how to describe “One for the Money,” apparently based on the novel by the same name, is incomprehensibly bad. Katherine Heigl plays possibly the dumbest protagonist to ever appear in a movie, as Stephanie Plum, a fiscally irresponsible, unemployed ex-retail employee who finds herself in desperate need of a job. So she goes to her cousin who through no fault of his own offers her a job as a bounty hunter, and oh the plot thickens, offers her the job of catching the man who broke her heart in high school. If this sounds some what familiar to “The Bounty Hunter” (2010) staring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, that’s because it is exactly the same plot. Only this one also wants to be a gritty, crime movie (I like to think this film daydreams about being “The Departed” (2006)). Jason O’Mara even sort of looks like Gerard Butler if you squint and tilt your head to the side. So, we’ve got “The Bounty Hunter” only not as good (and were this a review of “The Bounty Hunter” I’d qualify good, but as it’s not, I can safely say, without hesitation, that this movie is not as good as “The Bounty Hunter”).
Enter our heroine, somewhat completely empty headed, Stephanie Plum decides to not only become a bounty hunter, but no, she’s also going to be a detective. And even though she sees “Joe” (O’Mara) every other scene, she goes out asking questions about his whereabouts, and stumbles into a crime spree involving a boxer, a butcher and a candle stick maker (okay, no candle stick maker). She manages to put everyone in danger and gets a few killed, delivers some really terrible dialogue, and then saves the day.
There are so many things wrong with this movie it seems like a joke to even start mentioning them, but what sort of review would this be if I didn’t rip this movie apart.
First: This woman loses her job at a department store and can’t find another one. I know the economy is rough, but being unemployed for six months with your finances to the point that they repossess your car? I think I’d be working at a burger place or something long before the 6 month mark.
Second: She starts bounty hunting, then happens to find a mentor bounty hunter. Okay… this guy spends half his time saving her ass. Why doesn’t he just get Joe and get the money? He’s very “Oh how cute, you want to be a bounty hunter *pats on the head*” which she goes along with because she’s an idiot.
Then we find out she’s friends with a cop, so the rest of the time she’s calling on her cop friend for help, a cop friend who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag with a flash light and a pair of safety scissors. I was ready to call cut on the scene in the movie theater.
So when she’s not being helped by her Mister Miyagi (Daniel Sunjata), or her cop friend (Nate Mooney), she’s being saved by the guy she’s trying to bring in, Joe, who is a cop who shot a scumbag while off duty (and like any good cop, ran from the law). She is the definition of a strong female lead.
Third: We’re told more than we’re shown or that we get to experience through the character. We’re told she lost her job, we’re told she was married but isn’t anymore (but not to Joe, it’s just presented as a random bit of information), we’re told that her and Joe have a past, and we’re told that Joe is a cop who skipped out on his bail (we do get some flashbacks of the crime, but not until late in the movie). We have no reason to care about any of what is happening in the film, and frankly it’s discouraging that the main character repeatedly and needlessly puts herself in harms way and survives to the end of the film.
The dialogue. Oh, the dialogue. “I know, right?” and “Solid” are quotes from this film. The dialogue is so unnatural and heavy handed, I wondered for a minute if the person who wrote it had ever conversed with another human being before. The plot is formulaic for both “crime” movies and romance, and the characters are duller than your grandmother’s steak knives from 1961.
However, I did laugh. It is a film that inspires you to laugh at how terrible it is. It doesn’t seem like an insult to humanity, just another b film that didn’t make the mark. It does make one wish that something good would come out of Hollywood now and again, and those film lovers out there shake their heads at the sheer terribleness of it, but at least we can laugh at it (certainly not with it).
1 star out of pity. Skip it and watch “The Bounty Hunter” on netflix instant.
Reel Mess 