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Flops and robbers

New Paul Newman film disappointing, very predictable

The last time Paul Newman starred in a caper film ("The Sting," 1973), the film won Best Picture.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Newman's new film, "Where the Money Is," is certainly not of that caliber, but, as it nestles itself comfortably in the conventions of the heist genre, the movie is generally not that bad.

Linda Fiorentino and Dermot Mulroney play Carol and Wayne, a struggling married couple who are unable to recapture the excitement their relationship once had.

Fiorentino is her usual steely-voiced self, and Mulroney pulls off this curious mix of puppy dog eyes and male bravado. The two together lack any chemistry - and even if that is the point, the audience never believes they had it to begin with. But generally, they are not that bad.

Paul Newman, as ex-bank robber Henry who is faking a stroke so he can be placed in a nursing home instead of prison, naturally commands each scene he is in. His character is a wise old man that is, unfortunately, but a slight variation on other wise old men in film. This is nothing audiences have not seen before, but again, it is not that bad.

Furthermore, the movie itself presents nothing original outside of its genre conventions. Caper films usually set up weak relationships between its characters, establish a flimsy motive for the crime, and then spend the majority of the film delighting audiences with the ingenuity of the caper's mechanics. Audiences just want to see how they do it.

"Where the Money Is" follows suit with the weak relationships - their marriage is on the rocks, leading to a flimsy crime motive. As with other films of this sort, Carol has a deep-rooted lust for something exciting in her life, which turns out to be bank-robbing.

Once the film pores through this tedious exposition, it pushes the viewers into what must be one of Dante's circles of hell - where the poor souls having committed the sin of buying a ticket to this movie must eternally endure the punishment of boredom.

In an awkward scene indicative of this, Carol gives a comatose Henry a wheelchair lap dance in order to prove he is faking.

The film's caper scheme is unoriginal and lacking any element of style or flair - a far cry from the clever art thefts of "The Thomas Crown Affair." Granted, robbing an armored car is not all that glamorous, especially in the little rural town where the film takes place, but audiences are far too familiar with the contrived situations where the robbers nearly get caught that plague this film.

The movie's one saving grace is, of course, Paul Newman. Set against the nearly lifeless and slightly offbeat nursing home residents - Hollywood persists in its inability to represent senior citizens as anything but comatose dust collectors or wise-cracking truth tellers - Newman radiates charismatic, engaging energy with each facial twitch and slant-eyed stare.

Even when he is playing a motionless stroke victim, the audience can sense that a lot is going on behind his lifeless exterior. It is a depth that Fiorentino and Mulroney fail to bring to their own characters.

"Where the Money Is" turns out to be all on the surface - a poor imitation of older and better caper films.

Graig Uhlin can be reached at catalyst@wildcat.arizona.edu.