Product Details

• Actors: Newman, Fiorentino, Mulroney, Bar
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Polygram USA Video
• VHS Release Date: June 5, 2001
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00003CX89
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,784 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Linda Fiorentino is her lean, sexy self as Carol, a former prom queen who's grown up to be a nurse in an old-age home, which isn't quite what she imagined her future would be. She's married to her prom king, Wayne (Dermot Mulroney), who's grown a little dull. Then Henry (Paul Newman) gets delivered into her care. He's an imprisoned bank robber who has had a stroke. Or has he? Carol begins to try to suss him out, even going so far as to straddle him in his wheelchair and fondle his ears, but it's not until she pushes him into a reservoir that he breaks his masquerade. Carol, desperate to get some excitement in her life, convinces Henry to pull a job with her. She starts casing banks and scoping out armored cars. When Wayne gets jealous of the time she's spending with Henry, he gets pulled into the deal--and a heist is underway. What makes Where the Money Is click isn't the fairly standard plot, it's the character details. Written in part by E. Max Frye--who wrote Something Wild (one of the best and most unappreciated movies of the 1980s)--the film consistently manages to give every character, no matter how small, something that makes them seem real. Though the pace starts out slow, and there are some not entirely convincing story elements, once the heist starts all this nuance pays off--every complication produces real tension because you've gotten to know Carol, Henry, and Wayne so well. Newman's effortless performance shows how he's stayed a star through five decades. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Newman shines, December 21, 2000

By	"flickjunkie" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Paul Newman shines in this implausible, but highly watchable caper flick about three unlikely armored car robbers. It is hard to believe that Newman is 75. He is fitter and more energetic than most men who are fifteen years his junior. He single-handedly elevates this film from mediocrity.

The story is nothing unique. Henry (Newman) is a bank robber who is delivered to a nursing home after a debilitating stroke. His nurse (Linda Fiorentino) suspects he is not the vegetable he appears to be. After she gets him to admit his ruse, she exhorts him to knock off an armored truck with her.

Director Marek Kanievska and writer Max Frye leave numerous gaps in the story. We never discover what tips off Carol that Henry is faking. They didn't do enough character development of Carol and Wayne (Dermot Mulroney) to make it believable that they would want to become criminals, no less hatch the scheme. The idea that Carol was pretending to be the dispatcher for the armored car company from a cell phone in the truck is a flimsy concoction. Even with digital technology, most cell phones in moving vehicles sound like cell phones, and you can hear road noises and the engine running.

Still, despite a lackluster script, the film is enjoyable because of Paul Newman. Newman gives a fantastic rendition of a stroke victim, and his hardened and cantankerous portrayal was marvelous. Linda Fiorentino plays the scheming sex-kitten nurse in one of her better performances. The screen chemistry between Fiorentino and Newman is excellent with undercurrents of sexual desire constantly flaring up between them. Dermot Mulroney is relegated to a role that was essentially a fifth wheel and is adequate as Carol's loser of a husband.

I rated this film a 7/10. It is good entertainment and an opportunity to see a master at work. Newman hasn't lost a beat in a movie career that spans almost a half a century. It is worth seeing for him alone.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars kansas needs to lighten up., July 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Where the Money Is (DVD)

This movie is a hoot and of course, Paul Newman, is superb. You watch a movie for entertainment. Don't take everything so seriously!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good acting in a fluff plot, June 18, 2002

By	Len Czyzniejewski (Las Vegas, Nv United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Where the Money Is (DVD)

I like a fun caper movie when all the right elements that go with it are in place. This movie has a plot that flat out wouldn't work, which would be ok in a movie like "Sugar and Spice", where we just care about how the cheerleaders look. But this one is trying to be more serious, and with it should come grittier crime scenarios.

The serious part is to show Paul Newman faking paralysis in order to get to a rest home instead of prison as a means of making an escape. While very unlikely in itself, he plays it seriously. Also played seriously is the attempt by Linda Fiorentino to unmask the charade. The chemistry between the two actors is excellent, both here, and throughout the entire movie, and that's what gets it three stars. Paul Newman shows he's still very much worth seeing, and I hope they give him a few more higher quality films before he packs it in.

But while I liked the interraction between the two main characters, unfortunately everything else is, well, fluff. Dermot Mulroney has a completely thankless role as the husband who feels he's losing his wife to the much older Newman. Since he isn't really a bad person, I don't like that the movie makes him do something to make us dislike him by the end.

But the part I disliked the most was the crime caper they go on. Newman once again shows marvelous talent as an actor as they go on it, but it's the heist they do that doesn't convinvce me for a minute that it would work. Nor does the ending when confronted by the police, nor does the very final few minutes. With the recent quality filming of Elmore Leonard novels, the bar has risen in the way movies need to portray the criminal world.

Linda Fiorentino has proven she can do great work, and Paul Newman is a national treasure. Let's give him the respect he deserves with a few more quality roles.