Movie Review - Where the Money Is
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2000 / 88 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz
He looks at the camera and gives his trademark smile. Suddenly, he is no older than he was in “Slap Shot” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and, if he is, it barely matters. Because when he flashes you that smile, that “old Luke smile” as George Kennedy said in one of his finest films, the years and the mileage make no difference. He is the same scoundrel that he always has been. Even if the years have put a few more wrinkles in his face, they have not changed his eyes.
“Where the Money Is” is basically a one-man show. There are other people in it, but what really matters is Newman. Paul Newman. One of the finest actors who has ever graced a silver screen. He displays all those qualities he does best in “Where the Money Is”, and he does it so well that the fact that the movie has a few flaws barely matters. Paul can grace over quite a few rough spots.
Paul is an old bank robber. He is faking a stroke so that he can get out of prison and into a nice, cushy retirement village. All the easier to escape, my dear. It is all working according to plan until the delightful Linda Fiorentino shows up. She can see right through Paul and wants him to perform another bank job. Her life is pretty boring and she figures that a felony is just the thing to spice it up. She even cons her husband into helping out, even though he is a tad jealous of how closely the two of them are working. Who wouldn’t be? The man is PAUL NEWMAN! Everyone bitches about Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones as a couple, but no one says boo about Newman and Fiorentino. Why? Because Newman is Newman. He says more with an eyebrow than most men say with their entire bodies. He has aged like a fine wine. And Fiorentino is not after pretty boy looks. She has already had them. She wants a man who is interesting, a man of substance and style. Newman has those in spades. Connery may have played James Bond, but Newman has spent his entire career enticing his way into banks and young women’s hearts and pants with equal success.
The plot has just enough twists and turns to keep you interested, the performers do a great job with their roles, and everything progresses nicely. I was reminded of “Entrapment” a few times, but the comparison helps this movie much more than it hurts it. The smooth way in which their armed car robbery is pulled off leaves one smiling. So does the rest of the movie. You emerge from the dark of the theater no wiser, no more enlightened, but with a big, goofy smile upon your face.
