Katherine Heigl | Optionated

Why are you interested in this adaptation?

Elena-

Pick the reason I am interested:

(1) Katherine Heigl is my favorite actress and I watch everything she does;

(2) The Stephanie Plum series is one of my favorites so OF COURSE I’m going to see the first movie even if it’s totally different from the book;

(3) I was overdue for going to a bad movie with the intention of drunk heckling it.

If you guessed (3)…you are one for the money! And if you guessed either (1) or (2) then you haven’t read one of our columns before, have you? Oh, honey, you are in for a treat!

Also I should add that I am going with a friend who has read the series and enjoys it for the fun, ridiculous Jersey fist-pump of chick-lit that it is, and while KH is not a favorite I actually don’t mind her the way a lot of people do. So there’s that.

Rachel-

THE SCENE: It is nighttime in Brooklyn. The buses are making their endless journeys, the bums are settling in for a nap in my garbage and my hipster neighbors have finally stopped their band practice. There are a few drunken couples coming home from an evening out at the bar and their screaming match is fading into the distance of horns and the occasional police siren. If I try really hard, I can almost imagine the sound of chirping crickets (who am I kidding, I mean the droning of cicadas) on this unseasonably warm winter evening.

And I tell you, dear reader, I would rather run naked out into that endless, terrible night than watch a Katherine Heigl movie.

I blame Elena, she let me believe this was some sort of Urban Fantasy Mystery adaptation. And then I googled it.

What would make it suck?

Rachel-

I REALLY hope this isn’t some weird anti-feminist bullshit like all of KH’s other movies. That one she made with Gerard Butler (Side Note: Have you ever seen Dear Frankie? I actually weep to think Butler used to be that guy, and now he’s a steroid filled mush mouth actor… IT’S TRAGIC) and the entire movie was about him treating her like crap and her learning to find his sexist and disgusting behavior endearing? UGHHHHHHH!!!!

However, I expect a ridiculous train wreck of Jersey Shore stereotypes and cringe-worthy acting in One for the Money. I mean…the title is lame. It sounds like a Sweet Valley High volume. I would label it a trash novel, but I think that would be an insult to Harlequin.

Elena-

If it’s a totally unrealistic “badass yet beautiful and approachable” female role-playing/wish fulfillment fantasy. Also if they treat her possession of and use of firearms either irresponsibly or as a joke. Not because I hate or fear guns but rather because I hate and fear the lobby that would take them away and don’t want to provide them any ammunition—no matter how tongue in cheek it was meant—for that cause.

What would make it awesome?

Elena-

Um…my expectations are kind of starting in the gutters, so I think I will consider it an awesome time at the movies if I walk out with a smile. That can be either because the movie is so patently terrible that my friend and I just MST3K it the whole time, or if it’s better than I expect—you know, actually funny and witty and sexy and adventurous.

Rachel-

Please god let there be some self-aware and hilarious co-star that has decided that in addition to collecting a paycheck they will keep the audience in on the joke that this movie suuuucks.

I mean, I didn’t think I’d like Bridesmaids either (purely on the fact that it had to do with a wedding, and that is always boring and stupid), but I ended up nearly peeing myself with laughter. Maybe Melissa McCarthy can be in this film too?

Additional thoughts on casting or production?

Elena-

Well, I’ve already mentioned that I don’t mind Heigl despite her being a love-to-hate-her actress.

I have been told grandma is the best part of the series, so I am expecting that character to be hilarious and will be disappointed if she is not.

This is set in Jersey, right? Does that mean it’s going to be full of a bunch of Jersey Shore types? If she tries to fall in love with a dude calling himself “The Shenanigan” I am fucking out, y’all.

Rachel-

TOO LATE. Whatever troll-type they’ve got cast as the romantic interest will now forever be dubbed “The Shenanigan.” He can be half Irish, half Italian—all whack.

I don’t know who this grandma is. I only know what Wikipedia tells me and it tells me that Isabelle is a bounty hunter and she sells bras. (Speaking of Isabelle, remember how she ended up marrying that stupid random character they brought on last-minute because Tom Hanks’ nephew quit Roswell but we all knew they were supposed to be together? And Isabelle was the most supremely uninteresting alien posing as a high school student in the history of the genre? (Because bitches aren’t interesting!!!!) And even when they did the whole Bewitched homage she STILL wasn’t interesting and we just wanted Isabelle to maybe die and take stupid Tess with her? DO YOU REMEMBER THAT GUYS?)

I’m going to go watch the movie now. Pause for Effect.

Reaction to Film?

Rachel-

……….

That was… that was…. .

Well that was a Katherine Heigl movie.

One for the Money was everything I feared it would be. A stereotype-laden piece of trash with writing that can only be described as…chewy. So, instead of abusing my brain by trying to digest the word vomit, I mentally replaced the entire film with Shakespeare. It was what kept me sane.

For example, when Stephanie Plum starts her new job as a “bounty hunter” and it just so happens that an early assignment is an old douchey flame, I blocked out the rage-inducing couple talk with hilarious insults from the Bard. (Hey, look, it’s The Shenanigan. He…looks exactly how I pictured he would. How terrifying.)

Or when the bounty hunter mentor guy decided that he was going to break the law and purchase our intrepid heroin her own weapon of destruction I decided maybe everyone in this movie was on drugs.

Or.. mayhaps I was on drugs? Drugs that made everything in the universe not funny.

Nay! This movie was just… horribly unfunny.

Like the whore jokes… whose idea was that?

Yea… let’s laugh at horrible bigoted caricatures of people. HILARIOUS.

Or when Heigl’s character decided that people LOVE funny whores and her bounty-hunting tactics would revolve around double entendres and copious shots of her bra?

I decided maybe I was being tortured for something terrible I had done? Heigl’s career certainly deserves the punishment she’ll get from this latest resume star of a film. She produced this one herself, isn’t that nice? People with money are idiots. Stop paying this woman to do a damn thing. JUST. STOP.

Alas, had this film ended when it should have…we would have been spared rank tripe. Here’s your grade Ms. Heigl. Enjoy as thou wilt.

Elena-

So…that wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, it was not great cinema. It was not profound storytelling or deep characterization. There were a lot of stereotypes, and several really questionable gun scenes. But I kind of enjoyed it. Maybe I was just drunk enough on the cheap corporate-chain-restaurant margaritas I sucked down by the bucketful in advance to appreciate the level of cheapness on display.

Maybe that was why I spent the entire film having flashbacks to that college production of Taming of the Shrew?

Dear readers, I present to you Elena’s Notes for this movie—a handy visual and alternative-textual summation of the film that will tell you everything you need to know about what happened in it with only the cast of Katherine “The Curst” and “The Shenanigan” to tell the tale.

Firstly, the unhappy lovers reunite:

Round one to The Shenanigan.