Mad Money

Three minor employees at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank (Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes) hatch a plot to steal worn-out currency on its way to the shredder. That’s about all there is to Glenn Gers’ script (based on a British TV movie by John Mister, Neil McKay and Terry Winsor), despite a clumsy flashback structure intended to make the plot look more complicated than it is. The “foolproof” heist is simple-minded to the point of absurdity; if it were this easy to rob the Fed, the dollar wouldn’t be worth the paper Gers’ script is printed on. Director Callie Khouri, who made such a hash of the complex Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, has a simpler story here—and she still makes a hash of it, making her stars flail around in ill-fitting characters (Holmes is particularly awkward).