One for the Money





Directed By: Julie Anne Robinson

Starring: Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd, and Debbie Reynolds

2010 marked the beginning of the end for Katherine Heigl.  When studio execs decided to give her a gun in the romantic comedy Killers, we all knew that she could only go downhill from there.  As expected, the film was awful and bombed at the box office.  Heigl hasn't had a hit since that disastrous film.  For some strange reason, some studio decided to give Heigl a gun again this year in the action comedy One for the Money.  Some people just don't realize that history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

Stephanie Plum (Heigl) has been unemployed for the last six months.  She's broke and is in desperate need of some cash.  The former lingerie store manager turns to her cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler), a bail bondsman, for a job.  Because she is family, Vinnie hires Stephanie as a bail enforcement agent.  Her task is to capture Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara) and bring him into custody.  Morelli is a cop charged with murder and is on the run.  It just so happens that he has a history with Stephanie.  They had a fling in high school that didn't end well, and Stephanie hit him with a car.

It appears history has indeed repeated itself because One for the Money is one of those films where everything just goes wrong.  The film is predictable.  It's full of clichés and terrible fake New Jersey accents.  I didn't crack a smile in this action comedy and cringed any time Heigl had a gun in hand.  On top of that, Jason O'Mara repeatedly calls Heigl "cupcake", which is annoying as hell and highlights the poor chemistry between the two leads.  With all of this, I only have one thing to say about this flick.  It absolutely sucks.

The biggest problem with One for the Money is that director Julie Anne Robinson can't find the right tone for the film.  One minute, she's making a light-hearted romp.  The next, she's trying to make a film with a more serious tone.  Keep in mind that she has Katherine Heigl and Jason O'Mara as her two leads.  She doesn't exactly have a lot of acting talent to accommodate her indecisive filmmaking.

I was really hoping that One for the Money would surprise me by being halfway decent.  Deep down, I knew that wouldn’t happen, and I was anything but pleasantly surprised by the film.  However, there is always one pleasant surprise that can help with crappy flicks like this — mystery shots!  Get wasted for One or the Money.