One For The Money (2011) [Blu-ray]
Action | Comedy | Crime | Romance | Thriller

She's looking foria few not-so-good men.

Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is a bright, attractive, confident woman whose entire life has just taken a sudden turn - in the totally wrong direction. Newly divorced and recently laid off, the only work she can scrape up is a dead-end job at her sleazy cousin's bail bond office. But when her first big assignment involves tracking down an on-the-lam ex-flame (Jason O'Mara), this tough-as-nails lady bounty hunter will be redefining the meaning of hot pursuit in this thrill-packed action comedy.

User Comment: iheart_ny from United States, 28 January 2012 • I wanted to love "One for the Money", and I should have. It had fantastic source material, a writer from one of my favorite shows ("Nurse Jackie"), and an actress from what used to be one of my favorite shows ("Grey's Anatomy"), but this film could not have been any more disastrous. There was a movie that I hated a few years ago called "The Bounty Hunter", with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. I felt like that film was as contrived as could be, and was unfunny, unromantic and incredibly unconvincing. I hate to say that "One for the Money fell into that same ball park.

One of the reasons why I love the book, "One for the Money", by Janet Evanovich is because its heart, Stephanie Plum was an unapologetic badass, profane and saucy. I always pictured someone like Sandra Bullock playing the lead role, a born-and-raised Jersey girl who was down on her luck, who finds her inner badass through a series of misadventures, but ultimately comes out on top in the end.

I don't necessarily blame Katherine Heigl for ruining this movie. She did the best she could, even though her Jersey accent is laughably bad. She was simply miscast. She should have never discontinued her work on "Grey's Anatomy, because if these are the kinds of roles she's getting, her future's only going to get worse.

Julie Ann Robinson ("The Last Song") directed, who I blame for the movie's obviously unclear vision. You get the idea that she didn't know what she wanted this movie to be. Maybe she thought that after all of the books that had been written, fans don't remember the first chapter of the franchise. Did she and the rest of the filmmakers intend this to be a film franchise as well? You get the idea that no one really cared, given the film's messy ending and sitcom-y writing.

Liz Brixius (Nurse Jackie), Karen McCullah Lutz (Legally Blonde) and Kristen Smith (The Ugly Truth) are responsible for the travesty of a screenplay. Women ARE funny. There have been so many funny and smart movies that had primarily female writers, actors and directors, so why does this film seem misogynist? It's a mixed message, and an implication that I really don't like. Their version of Stephanie Plum is an idiot. She's not a saucy badass, like the one I loved in the books. Her profanity is turned down, too, because of the meaningless desire that the filmmakers must have had to get a PG-13 rating. Why would kids want to see this movie? Oh, of course...Katherine Heigl's inevitable "sideboob".

I enjoy the work of Liz Brixius, considering that she is the creator of one of my favorite shows, "Nurse Jackie". She has shown over the years that she knows how to properly illustrate complicated characters. She is not beyond character development, and making characters fully realized...so what went wrong here? Why didn't she scream at the other two writers, "what the hell are you doing?!"

I can only imagine how bad true fans of the books felt about this travesty. There are eighteen Stephanie Plum novels, plus short stories, novellas and crossovers. People clearly like this character, and there have got to be a bunch of true fans out there. The first book was written in 1994, and there was talk of a movie then. It had been in development hell since then, and it's a shame to say that it probably should have stayed there.

Grade: D-

Summary: I wanted to love One for the Money..I really did.

User Comment: ladyokey from United States, 27 January 2012 • This adaptation of Janet Evanivich's book is well done and a lot of fun. Katherine Heigl is excellent in the role of Stephanie Plum. Apparently the author considered Katherine perfect for this role after seeing her in another movie. I'm so glad it was directed by a woman and combines the chick flick aspect with the mystery/bounty hunter storyline. Women's dates will be well rewarded, by Heigl's charm and beauty, for being along for the ride.

Heigl proves again what she showed in her television work in Grey's Anatomy and Roswell, that she's an excellent and versatile actress. She displays the vulnerability combined with toughness and a certain likable gullibility that are exactly as the book portrays the main character.

The movie is only 91 minutes long. Since the book and the movie depend more on the fun of getting to know the characters, including the first-person narrator, Stephanie Plum, it would have been so easy, and would have made it much better IMO, to include more scenes with the family, especially Grandma Mazur (Debbie Reynolds!), and with Lula (Sherri Shepherd is also wonderful). As it is, the "action" plot takes over in the second half, and it left me wishing for more of the fun character interactions.

Plum, Morelli and Ranger are really well portrayed and quite a lot like I imagined them while reading the book. This is light entertainment with a few quirks and unpredictable points of view, like the book, and overall a very enjoyable hour and a half.

Summary: Some fun quirks and unpredictable points of view.

[CSW] -2.5- It was fairly humorous. I especially liked the New Jersey type of in-your-face personality based humor. Unfortunately it was a challenging mix of mystery, crime, romance, and comedy that all to often manages to miss the mark. Is close to good, good enough? This movie just seems a little bit off most of the time. I will round the score up because event thought the weakness in the script probably rates a round down there were nuggets of entertainment mixed in. Just know that this is definitely a rental only movie.
[V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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