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Feb. 01, 2012 - Issue #850: Godot

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One For the Money

Stop, or Katherine Heigl will shoot

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» Bounty huntin' Heigl

One for the Money, two for the show, three to get ready, and  ... don't go. Not to this fizzed-out-pop-flat, weeks-old-popcorn-stale take on the bounty hunter-meets-female PI genre (based on the first in Janet Evanovich's book series). Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is the hapless but cute SWF bounty-hunter in pursuit of old flame Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara), a cop in the frame for murder. Also in the frame? A colourful world of Trenton, NJ oddballs, perps and two black prostitutes, so friendly and spunky! Plenty of Plum professing the plot. Much muzak-scored sexual tension. Plus quips and "comic violence" in the midst of a man blown up in a car or a murdered woman stuffed into a barrel!


Everyone's in it for the money and going through the broad emotions, it seems, with nary a visual oomph! or script pow! to be detected. Most American-ly, the flick ignores its racial issues for the sake of white romance and heroism: Plum's threatened by a Hispanic man in a cage but rescued by Morelli; after Lula, a black prostitute, gets beaten up, Plum channels her anger into the target at a firing-range, kills the baddie behind it all, and Plum's white, semi-pervy boss gets Lula an office job. Meanwhile, the supposedly feisty Plum keeps following the lead of the two hunky men in her life. Scrape off the Elmore-Leonard-lite scuzz, and One For The Money's just a retroinactive rom-com.
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One For the Money
Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson

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