Cynical Cinema

Walk All Over Me is a Canadian film starring Leelee Sobieski and Tricia Helfer.  You can tell it’s Canadian by Minute Four, and you can tell nothing cool is going to happen by Minute Nine.  And you can tell you regret renting it by Minute Eleven.  And you can stop watching it right then and there.  The premise of the movie is that Leelee Sobieski is Alberta, a hot small-town teenage girl who runs away from home after getting into trouble with some thugs.  She runs to Vancouver, where she decides to hide out with Celine (Tricia Helfer), who is either a friend or a relative.  Or something.  Celine, you see, is a dominatrix.  And I know the nerds out there are excited already.  Tricia Helfer?  Dominatrix?  Yes…yes…and they are hosting Battlestar Galactica marathons in order to prepare themselves to watch this.

But you know what?  Tricia Helfer does not get naked.  Leelee Sobieski becomes a dominatrix too, but she also does not get naked.  Then why bother having the “dominatrix” theme in the movie at all?  Because it means that this way Sobieski gets to spend the entire movie in fishnets and cleavage-boosting bustiers and spiked heels on CFM boots.  And it also means that much of the film will take place in weird rooms, and people “not knowing what that weird helmet is for” becomes the standard punchline to jokes that were never told.  But there is almost no actual dominatrix action whatsoever, it’s just the clothes that appear in the film.  Which would be fine if you were making a porno, but this movie takes itself almost seriously.

It’s one of those crime capers where bad guys are after a good guy because they believe he stole some money, and bad guys capture good guys, and new guys get involved, and new guys capture bad guys, and bad guys trade good guys with new guys.  One of those.  But Canadian.  Obviuously Canadian.  And therefore painfully boring and not too good.  Perhaps the idea was that putting Sobieski and Helfer in boob-showing shirts and fishnets and short skirts and hooker boots would distract people from the lack of plot, the poor acting and the senseless story.  And, in a way, that DID actually work on me.  After all, how many times have I mentioned it in this review alone?  And the clothes and girls DID keep me watching past the eleven minute mark.  But by then I had seen everything, and I wished I had turned it off.  So there’s my advice to you.  Eleven minutes in.  Turn this off and watch a fishing show.

Mad Money is about Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes and Queen Latifah stealing money. Katie Holmes is Tom Cruise’s wife and was in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Queen Latifah was a rapper who appeared in the movie Taxi and produced Who’s Your Caddy. Diane Keaton, on the other hand, was Annie Hall. She was in The Godfather. And Manhattan. She is the one who should have known better. When a director whose previous credits include “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” approaches you about starring in a movie with Katie Holmes and Queen Latifah, you say no. Well, if you’re some actress just trying to break into films, you don’t. But if you’re Diane Keaton, with seven certifiable all-time classics under your belt, you do. You say now, you walk away, and you wait for the next legitimate offer to come rolling in. Saying yes to this movie would be like Jack Nicholson agreeing to star opposite Adam Sandler in a comedy directed by the guy who did The Nutty Professor II and Tommy Boy. Oh…wait…that happened too.

Frankly though, I think Diane Keaton’s appearance in Mad Money is not a reason to make fun of her. I think it is more likely a result of so few good roles popping up in movies for women over the age of 35. There have been five good, older-lady starring roles in movies over the past decade. Two have gone to Judi Dench, and three to Helen Mirren. There is nothing left. So if you want to continue acting, you take whatever comes along, even if that means appearing in one of the worst comedies of 2008, Mad Money. Keaton plays a upper-class yuppie who gets thrust back into the work force when her husband (Ted Danson) gets downsized. She ends up getting a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank, where she decides she really does want to be able to continue buying those Faberge Eggs after all, and so she decides to steal some money to continue her yuppie lifestyle.

She enlists two other cleaners to help her. Katie Holmes is a spaced-out airhead. Queen Latifah is an angry single mother. And…laugh! OK, laugh! Nope. Laughs are few and far between as the plan gets put into action. There is also very little drama, very little excitement, and no boobs at all. So…what reason would someone have to watch this? A good question. The answer is - none. No reason at all. Mad Money doesn’t even work on the level of one of those loser idiot gross-out Adam Sandler movies. Like the one directed by the guy who did Tommy Boy. At least there was something interesting about it. Like, how low can Jack Nicholson actually GO in a movie? Here there is no suspense. Diane Keaton has already shown how low she can go by appearing in Because I Said So, which was even worse than this. (To see Keaton and Nicholson both phoning it in for a paycheque at the same time, watch Something’s Gotta Give.)

There are some seriously lousy performances in this movie, although Keaton’s isn’t one. Latifah plays who she always plays, she’s phoning it in too. Katie Holmes is given a role so unchallenging that it doesn’t matter whether she’s any good at all. Stephen Root, however, is unnecessarily obnoxious as the boss of the Federal Reserve. You would think that a guy in charge of something like that would be a little less smarmy and creepy than Steve Carrell in The Office. But what do I know. Ted Danson is useless as Keaton’s husband, existing only to cry about the loss of his job and complain about the thievery, both of which he doesn’t do well. There are a few funny moments. The moment where Queen Latifah asks the dean of her son’s private school if she can pay him in crack is hilarious. But…this IS supposed to be a comedy. One laugh and fifty-five cringe-inducing moments do not a comedy make. They make a turd heap. And Mad Money is one. It comes out tomorrow, May 13th, courtesy of Alliance Films.