Money for Nothing
Reviewed by Eli Kooris, Fri., March 23, 2001
Money for Nothing
D: Ramón Menéndez (1993); with John Cusack, Michael Madsen, Debi Mazar, James Gandolfini, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Rapaport, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Maury Chaykin.
They say money is the root of all evil, changing people for the worst, and director Menéndez sets out to show this in Money for Nothing, a bumbling rags-to-riches tale that seems confused with its own intentions. Based on a true story, dock worker Joey (Cusack) comes across a yellow crate in the middle of the road as he drives through the dilapidated streets of southern Philadelphia. Inside is $1.2 million in unmarked bills, a product of the defective lock on an armored car just leaving the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank. It seems Coyle's ship has finally come in. He, of course, keeps the money, ignoring the reward offered by the armored car company. Over the next five days, Coyle makes bad decision after bad decision and the film does also, juggling scenes between Dino Palladino (Del Toro) and the mob, his ex-girlfriend Monica (Mazar), who works at an investment banking firm, and Detective Pat Corenzi (Madsen), who seems uncharacteristically instinctual. Clues just seem to keep popping up, and Corenzi 's lucky enough to find them. Besides a couple of questionable plot-oriented scenes, the film's pace drags, spreading itself too thin over too many characters. The audience is left wanting to know more about certain story lines -- the barfly named Cochran (Hoffman) who tries to rat and collect the ransom and the bookie (Chaykin) who shares his philosophies on the meaning of money -- rather than just touching briefly on them as Coyle ventures from place to place. Gandolfini's performance as Billy, the honest elder brother, is perhaps the most notable in the film, yet it is squandered for he is used so sparingly, the character is almost nonexistent. It appears Menéndez couldn't decide if he wanted to make Money for Nothing a comedy about costly mistakes or a drama about moral dilemmas. So he combines the two, creating a sort of mutant film; the few intense scenes are dubbed with music that seems appropriate for, say, a slapstick comedy. And while the stellar cast keeps the film from being a complete failure, the slow story and convoluted tone leave the viewer all but broke in the end.
