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")