One for the Money

source: One for the Money

I didn't read the book, but I found this movie to be quite good and amusing. There were some parts of the movie where they could have done better, but I didn't have high expectancies about the movie... Now, after watching it, I realize that I liked it a lot and I was laughing all the time... Katherine Heigl, who played Stephanie Plum, did her job very well, even though the director was not so good... She promises to be an excellent actress if she can find a good role... Jason O'Mara is the archetype of the "american cop went bad", tough, but who can be melted by a determined woman... The worked well together, the result was better than I expected and the movie might be a good way to relax.I was disappointed by John Leguizamo, who is a great actor and who started playing in second hand movies. I don't understand why... On the other hand, I was surprised by Debbie Reynolds, who stared as Grandma Mazur and who was a breath of fresh air in the movie, with a lot of humor and cynicism, she was one of my favorite characters in the movie. If you don't have great expectancies from this movie, you will find it amusing and, maybe, you will relax for 91 minutes...

"One for the Money" was alright. It wasn't particularly good but it wasn't all that bad either. Some parts of it worked while most of it just kinda fell flat. *The Plot* So anyway, this is based on the book of the same title by Janet Evanovich. Basically, the movie follows Stephanie Plum (KATHERINE HEIGL), an ex-lingerie salesperson turned bounty hunter, who is intent in claiming the bounty on accused murderer, Joe Morelli (JASON O'MARA) who also happens to be an ex-lover. Along the way, she discovers that things might not be as straightforward as they appear and she has to piece together the mystery behind this alleged murder. There's also a little side plot involving a highly skilled bounty hunter named Ranger (DANIEL SUNJATA) who's helping her to learn the ropes to becoming a bona fide bounty hunter. This entire plot line seems weird because there are moments where you feel that Stephanie and Ranger are starting to develop a "thing" but the movie never explores that. It kind of just brushes it aside and makes you focus on Stephanie and Joe instead. Am I missing something here? The plot to this movie isn't anything special. I kept thinking of Erin Brockovich throughout the entire movie though; financially struggling white woman facing a situation where she's completely in over her head? Uh huh, I see what you did there. *Performances* While I didn't particularly like the character of Stephanie Plum in this movie, I have to admit I did like Katherine Heigl here. Sure, the jokes they gave her weren't anything worth more than the occasional chuckle but the entire movie relied on her to carry it and she did a pretty good job. However, I started out really hating her character and I thought she was such a bitch and borderline psychotic. As the movie went on though, I started liking her as the character began growing and getting the hang of being a bounty hunter although there was this one part near the end of the movie which I thought they actually made the character regress. *Comedy? Thriller? What?* The movie couldn't really decide whether it wanted to be a serious thriller or a light-hearted romantic-comedy. I never read the book so I can't tell you what that's like but the movie swung wildly from the two extremes. You'll have scenes that's just filled with physical humor and then suddenly you have these intense scenes of Stephanie Plum trying to solve this mystery which killed what little light-heartedness there was. I do have to admit though that some of the funniest moments were when Stephanie Plum was interacting with these two prostitutes played by Sherri Shepherd and Ryan Michelle Bathe. They had some really funny lines and I couldn't help but laugh out loud at those scenes. *Conclusion* While there were some bright moments, I was mostly just bored during this movie. The movie wasn't all that memorable and now, just a couple of hours after the movie, I'm already starting to forget it. Katherine Heigl did a good job as I mentioned earlier but that's pretty much it. I'd like to add that the pacing for this movie was terrible. There are certain parts of this movie that zoomed by that I felt would have been much better if the director had just taken the time to flesh it out a little bit more. On the other hand, some scenes which I thought wasn't needed or we didn't need to spend so much time on, seemed to go on forever. Maybe this was due to the movie being an adaptation of a book. We all know that book-to-movie adaptations often have to leave out huge chunks of plot just so they don't end up with a 5 hour long movie and that's possibly the reason why the pacing and plot sort of feels like a mess. I give "One for the Money": 3 out of 5 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Quickie 3/5 - Watch it if there's nothing better to watch Pros Katherine Heigl Cons Terrible pacing Genre confused Unexplored side plot

In New Jersey, the newly-divorced Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is a complete loser. She lost her job in Macy's and has no money to pay her bills. Her mother tells her that her cousin, who has a bail-bond business, is hiring a person to help him. Stephanie gets the position of recovery agent and is assigned to catch her former boyfriend Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara) that is a cop accused of executing a drug dealer. Stephanie finds Joe and he claims that he is innocent and was framed. She tries to find evidences that he is innocent and evolves with very dangerous people. "One for the Money" is a total mess, lost between a comedy and a thriller. The heavy hand of director Julie Anne Robinson makes a movie unfunny and violent for a comedy and silly for a thriller. I bought this DVD on sale because of the name of Katherine Heigl, who is miscast in the role of a bounty hunter and can not save this movie, and I was completely disappointed. My vote is three. Title (Brazil): "Como Agarrar Meu Ex-Namorado" ("How to Catch My Ex- Boyfriend")

I had other titles for this thing; "Piece of Crap", "Crime can be flirtatious", "Junk", "Garbage" and a whole host of naughty and otherwise verboten terms that the IMDb would frown upon. I'm not sure which was worse, the film or the ugly woman sitting next to me whose flirts were as phony as a three dollar bill. Probably the film. I walked out on the thing. I slept through portions of the first half. I should have reminded myself that the Jan-Feb time for movies is the trough of technically competent films that otherwise go absolutely no where, and are otherwise just plain B-grade material (at best). High school sweet-hearts reunite in a crime-ridden romp of quick-witted dialog that falls flat, and stunts and antics that posses all the style of a game show hosts checkered blazer and wingtip shoes. Skip it.

Just one question: When is the next Stephanie Plum movie coming out??? As a reader of all 18 J. Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, I feel as tho I know a little about the characters. Those who want to pan Katherine as Stephanie should be ashamed -- she is excellent in the lead role and definitely shows chemistry with Joe. It was fun watching the characters come to the screen after having them imagined for so long............I did picture grandma as Estelle Getty in Golden Girls but Debbie Reynolds has good comedy timing I now have my significant other listening to the books on tape and he thoroughly enjoyed the movie. We have already recommended it to several friends. We can hardly wait for further movies when Lula and Stephanie are doing their thing with FTA's, jelly donuts, and Cluck in a Bucket

The movie was cute but the technical adviser should be fired. As a Bail Bondsman for over 15 years, here are some things that were stupid. Warrants for bail jumpers are not DEAD OR ALIVE. That went out over 100 years ago. Secondly....the character used a 5 SHOT revolver, but the two shooting scenes were ridiculous. At the shooting range, the 5 shot revolver fired TWELVE ROUNDS!Then you have the scene where she shoots the bad guy and fired SEVEN ROUNDS! As you can see these technical flaws really made the movie CHEEZY. I would really love to see a sequel, but get your facts and reality straight. The overall movie was entertaining. I have have always enjoyed the actress' work. She is very talented and stunning to watch. If you decide to do a sequel, then use a real bail bondsman and bail enforcement agent for your technical advisers.

Loved the movie! Wasn't sure if I was going to be thrilled with the actors that they picked since I have read all the books, including the novellas, in the Stephanie Plums series. I have to say I really enjoyed the movie. I think they did a great job with transferring the book into the movie and I can't wait for more or a TV series. Katherine Heigel did a really great job as Stephanie Plum. The action was non-stop just like in the books along with the comedy. I thought they also did an impressive job of casting Vinnie, Connie and Lula. These are key characters and not just any actor would do to the Plum fans. Even if you haven't read the books I think this movie would be very enjoyable with the action, mystery and comedy.

As a fan of the book series, I was slightly disappointed with the movie. I liked it a lot, but felt they didn't do all the characters justice. Steph was fine, quite a bit better than I was expecting from Katherine. Joe was very good, liked him a lot. Vinny was better than I thought that actor would be, even though it is funny that I had thought of Fisher Stevens for Vinny, and what do you know, he is in the film as another character. Connie was good, Lula was good, Steph's parents were pretty good as well. Now I am going to be a bit critical, it is a review you know, Ranger was only OK, no pony-tail, not as dark and brooding as the book relays. He smiled way too much! Any smile from Ranger should speak volumes! Grandma Mazur; I love Debbie Reynolds, but she didn't quite capture the little old lady. Benito Ramirez was nowhere near as fear inducing, brutal monster as he should have been. I think the movie would have been much better over all if they went for an R rating, rather than fluffing it up a bit to be PG-13. My biggest complaint, as a "car guy", is Big Blue. You mean to tell me they couldn't find an appropriate 50s Buick?! The point of the car is to represent something that most of the men who see it appreciate it, but the women don't get it. A 70s Buick, really irked me!!! All in all a good movie, 3.5 stars from us!! Look forward to the continuing series!!

Very enjoyable light entertainment. A crime story that revolves around a clueless but persistent woman. The crime itself isn't all that important, and the focus is not on the narrative drive forward (which is good because it's kinda predictable). The focus is instead on the character of the female lead. Oddly, it's not about her growing as a character, or even about her getting more and more confident about her chosen line of work. It's not even about proving herself to everyone that she is capable. The story is about persistence, about how this character is somehow ideally suited for this situation, but just lacks the knowledge to be truly successful. If this wasn't such a light and airy movie, I would suspect that it was a metaphor for living in the age of the Internet, where knowledge is a commodity and anyone who has access to specific areas of knowledge can be an expert. Alas, it's a little less than that. Unfortunately for the movie, the lack of character depth and the cumbersome box-like production make it seem very TV-ish. Like this was the pilot episode of a series. It also suffers from useless-narrator syndrome. I didn't read the book, but I suspect the source material may share some of the blame for that via lazy exposition. Speaking from a guy's point of view about what is essentially a chick movie, it doesn't hurt that Heigl is hot, has a nice smile, and can handle a gun. And is a pretty good actress, sure, yeah... that. The casting could have been a lot worse. I would watch Heigl in just about anything if she stayed brunette.