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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Polygram USA Video
Salesrank: 60018
Released: December 19, 2000 |
| Our Price: $29.84 |
| Used Price: $8.00 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Linda Fiorentino is her lean, sexy self as Carol, a former prom queen who's grown up to be a nurse in an old-age home, which isn't quite what she imagined her future would be. She's married to her prom king, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), who's grown a little dull. Then Henry (Paul Newman) gets delivered into her care. He's an imprisoned bank robber who has had a stroke. Or has he? Carol begins to try to suss him out, even going so far as to straddle him in his wheelchair and fondle his ears, but it's not until she pushes him into a reservoir that he breaks his masquerade. Carol, desperate to get some excitement in her life, convinces Henry to pull a job with her. She starts casing banks and scoping out armored cars. When Wayne gets jealous of the time she's spending with Henry, he gets pulled into the deal--and a heist is underway. What makes Where the Money Is click isn't the fairly standard plot, it's the character details. Written in part by E. Max Frye--who wrote Something Wild (one of the best and most unappreciated movies of the 1980s)--the film consistently manages to give every character, no matter how small, something that makes them seem real. Though the pace starts out slow, and there are some not entirely convincing story elements, once the heist starts all this nuance pays off--every complication produces real tension because you've gotten to know Carol, Henry, and Wayne so well. Newman's effortless performance shows how he's stayed a star through five decades. --Bret Fetzer
Where the Money Is Reviews:
Brilliant caper comedy 
2009-06-04 - Paul Newman's late in life comedy. Linda Fiorentino also turns in a funny & quirky performance. Beautiful photography.
Newman Buttresses a Pleasant Surprise 
2003-03-31 - Linda Fiorentino plays a prom queen who finds herself working in a nursing home--and something less than satisfied with her life. Paul Newman arrives at the home in shackles, temporarily released from prison because he was feigning a stroke. A notorious bank robber, Newman's character is shrouded in intrigue. Though he's a dangerous character, Fiorentino's character, Carol, starts spending a lot of time alone with him.
Carol is a sexy and smart woman. (This is the first of Fiorentino's movies I remember seeing. Sh'es incredibly attractive, and will have to look for her in other movies.) One of Carol's causes for displeasure is her husband, Wayne, played by infrequent star Dermot Mulroney.
The plot plays out out very well, though the beginning stumbles a bit. The acting isn't great, though the charismatic and smooth Newman mostly carries the film. While the story at times is inplausible, it's a very watchable and light movie.
What I really enjoyed was the aftermath: while the bank caper movie is a bit formula, this incarnation is twisted with life-purpose and satisfaction crisis storylines, and an interesting resolution. The story comes off as a spirise to those who'd take it as cookie-cutter for the genre.
The cameara work is great, and the production quality is outstanding. The audio is a little muddy, but fits its genere very well.
a pretty good way to spend 90 minutes
2002-09-03 - A clever caper, "Where the Money Is" stars the inimitable Paul Newman as Henry Manning, a bank robber who went untouched for 20 years before bad luck landed him in the pen. Not one to call it quits, he fakes a heart attack and is transferred to a nursing home, where the only thing that stands in his way is a nurse named Carol (Linda Fiorentino).
This clever caper flick seems somewhat out of time, like a classic film and I enjoyed it immensely for this reason. The best part of this film is the performances. Linda Fiorentino is still the ... woman acting today. It's not about how she looks, but the way she carries herself
kansas needs to lighten up.
2002-07-22 - This movie is a hoot and of course, Paul Newman, is superb. You watch a movie for entertainment. Don't take everything so seriously!
Good acting in a fluff plot 
2002-06-18 - I like a fun caper movie when all the right elements that go with it are in place. This movie has a plot that flat out wouldn't work, which would be ok in a movie like "Sugar and Spice", where we just care about how the cheerleaders look. But this one is trying to be more serious, and with it should come grittier crime scenarios.
The serious part is to show Paul Newman faking paralysis in order to get to a rest home instead of prison as a means of making an escape. While very unlikely in itself, he plays it seriously. Also played seriously is the attempt by Linda Fiorentino to unmask the charade. The chemistry between the two actors is excellent, both here, and throughout the entire movie, and that's what gets it three stars. Paul Newman shows he's still very much worth seeing, and I hope they give him a few more higher quality films before he packs it in.
But while I liked the interraction between the two main characters, unfortunately everything else is, well, fluff. Dermot Mulroney has a completely thankless role as the husband who feels he's losing his wife to the much older Newman. Since he isn't really a bad person, I don't like that the movie makes him do something to make us dislike him by the end.
But the part I disliked the most was the crime caper they go on. Newman once again shows marvelous talent as an actor as they go on it, but it's the heist they do that doesn't convinvce me for a minute that it would work. Nor does the ending when confronted by the police, nor does the very final few minutes. With the recent quality filming of Elmore Leonard novels, the bar has risen in the way movies need to portray the criminal world.
Linda Fiorentino has proven she can do great work, and Paul Newman is a national treasure. Let's give him the respect he deserves with a few more quality roles.
