I remember seeing previews for 'One For The Money' and remember being slightly intrigued by it. It didn't look horrible. Katharine Heigl looked pretty appealing and to be totally honest, it looked like the kind of movie that the Missus and I might enjoy going to together so I made a mental note to check it out when it came out.
Only, it never did.
Seriously, it was the oddest thing. There was preview after preview and then there was... no movie. I saw release dates, I saw television promos and then it didn't show up here in Iowa City at all. That struck me as unusual. Normally it's the semi-interesting looking arts-indy films that you actually want to see that don't show up not mainstream rom-com potboiler types. Yet it didn't show up, so I was curious about it.
So the Missus snagged it from a Redbox and I sat down at watched it and you know what, I'm not sure what's wrong with this film. Seriously. Weirdest experience ever. There were known names in this movie. Debbie Reynolds as the crazy Grandma. Jason O'Mara showing flashes of a young Mel Gibson. Fisher Stevens and John Leguizamo showed up as well. I couldn't help thinking that if this movie had been made in 1995 it might have been a box office smash. Or at least shown up in a theater nearby. It had flashes of 'Stakeout' and a spicy bouquet of 'Kindergarten Cop' about it and it should have worked. Yet curiously, it didn't...
Based off the series of best selling Stephanie Plum novels by mystery writer Janet Evanovich, 'One For The Money' introduces us to Stephanie Plum (Heigl) who's out of a job, out of money and needs cash fast. Pointed to towards her Bail Bondsman cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) for a job, Plum enlists the help of Ranger (Daniel Sunjata) to teach her how to be a good bounty hunter so she can bring in ex-crush Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara) a cop whose on the lam for shooting someone. Plum, is of course, in over her head and still nurses a crush on her old flame Morelli and the usual hijinx ensue.
Maybe that was it- the 'usual hijinx' the movie was formulaic but not bad by any stretch of the imagination- but neither did it show up with anything new. Plum just seems kind of clueless and seems to achieve her successes through blind luck more than anything else. As a bounty hunter it seems like kind of a stretch for most of the movie but by the end she seems at least believable in the role.
Overall: A curious enigma of a movie, it feels slightly underdone. I think it would have made a fantastic made for television movie or been an excellent box office draw. In 1995. Rotten Tomatoes gave this 2% and said that 49% of the audience liked what they saw. That seems about right to me.
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