'Mad' for my parents

My mother likes Diane Keaton. My father loves Queen Latifah. I am a good daughter. Therefore, when my mother suggested we see Mad Money on Saturday - I tried to convince them to see The Savages - I agreed to join them. I have to admit I was doing it solely because I like my parents; Mad Money's commercials made me cringe. Do my parents owe me? Read on.


Mad Money fits the “Saturday matinee” label: formulaic but frothy fun.

Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise) mixes the demographics friendly trio of Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes for the girlfriends’ Ocean’s Eleven. Keaton, as Martha Stewart-ish Bridget Cardigan (yes, she has several), plays a down-on-her-luck janitor at the Federal Reserve in Kansas City. She drags single mother Nina (Latifah) and music-loving Jackie (Holmes) into her scheme to steal out-of-circulation money before it‘s shredded. After all, Bridget thinks, who’d miss it?

Glenn Gers’ script, adapted from a British TV movie, offers only the broadest character sketches, so the actresses must find their own depth. Latifah fares best: Although Nina may be the most reluctant participant, she, and Latifah, balance the crew. Latifah, whose film career began with a robbery drama (1996’s Set It Off), tweaks poor-urban-mother stereotypes, particularly at a private school for her sons. Keaton does blissfully amoral surprisingly well - she delights in a $62,000 diamond ring when discretion would be advisable - and employs her dithering tics more effectively than usual. Holmes has an even-sketchier outline than Keaton and Latifah: We never learn much about Jackie, except for a throwaway comment about early-onset diabetes. Unfortunately, Holmes lacks the comedic chops to create something beyond an exaggerated version of madcap.

One questions how the ladies smuggle money out of the Fed while barely alerting security, and the repeated money shots reek of cash porn. But for breezy, bawdy amusement, Mad Money may be worth your dough.