One for the Money: Review By Corey

What is one to expect when walking into a Katherine Heigl movie? You can expect nothing more or less than the typical Katherine Heigl herself! Every year, at least twice or unfortunately more, Katherine Heigl will come out with a new film where we, the audience, pretty much just see the same boring character over and over. It's not the fault of her being type-casted to the point where I doubt she'll ever find a way out, it's the fault of her never trying to make a character out of anything other than playing, well, herself. Katherine Heigl is certainly one of my least favorite female actors; she's been on this list since anything she's starred in after "Knocked Up". To her extent, however, "One for the Money" isn't as completely terrible as just about all of her films are.

With the exception of "Knocked Up" and "Life as We Know It", it's a guarantee that I have never walked out of a Katherine Heigl movie the least bit satisfied. Whether it's her starring in the film or maybe other sources of error in that film, there is just something about Heigl starring in a movie that turns off my curiosity. She's too bland in every role she's ever been in. She should consider herself lucky she's the big romantic-comedy star she is today and probably take into consideration that she should be doing more than she actually is. Of this new generation that we're pulling into, Katherine Heigl has been able to take the role as the new Jennifer Aniston of romantic-comedies! While she's not even close to Aniston's level, where she actually entertained audiences (and still does!), Heigl should take this status seriously and try and give a funnier performance with the lines given!

Instead of bashing Katherine Heigl's acting capability, there are some things to be said on her newest film, "One for the Money". After just seeing the female actor star in what was probably one of the worst films of last year, "New Year's Eve", I wasn't really anticipating seeing her star in another film so quickly. Based from what I saw of the trailer for "One for the Money", there was a strange blend of curiosity that swept through my mind. Despite Katherine Heigl starring in the lead, something about the storyline of the film intrigued me. Not enough to actually run out and see the movie, but enough to say that this would be actually one worth-seeing.

The reason for this is because I was hoping this would be Katherine Heigl's third film. When I say "third film", I strictly mean third film in my books, not anyone else's. "Knocked Up" and "Life as We Know It" are the only two films that Heigl starred in that I like to remember, the rest of them I pleasure in forgetting. So when I say that I was hoping that "One for the Money" would be her "third film", I mean that I was hoping it'd be third film from her that I ever liked.  The only thing from the film that gave me hope was because Katherine would actually have to be playing a character; a character that was formulated in a 19-book series; a character that an author had worked hard to develop and made fans throughout the book-series. If this character was so loved by readers there had to be something there that lit the spark. This film was a chance for Heigl to play a character and work hard on playing that character so she would please fans of the book. She wouldn't be playing herself, and that's what sparked my curiosity. Unfortunately...

...the only difference between this performance and any other Katherine Heigl performance is a horribly done Jersey-girl accent. Is it bad that I prefer this Heigl?

"One for the Money" follows Stephanie Plum, a broke single woman who finds herself at a point where she's willing to take any work for money. When she sets up a job as a bounty hunter with her cousin's department, she takes on the highest-marked case on the list: tracking down Joe Morreli, a cop who skipped bail after the framing of a murder. Oh, and guess what? Morreli is also a high-school find of Plum's, one of which trashed her heart (This would happen in a romantic-comedy, wouldn't it?) To take down a man that she's been waiting to take a punch at for years for a price of 50 thousand dollars, Plum finds herself at an extreme advantage, until romantic-comedies get cliché and out of hand, of course.

What the film needs desperately is a sense of humor. Almost none of the movie is funny in an instance, when in fact, is it had many opportunities to snag a couple of laughs. One big miss this film took was with its hooker characters. These character's needed to be more over-the-top, and they needed to be a lot funnier. Instead, they were annoying, there for almost no apparent reason, and had no comedic flare with anything. Same thing goes with a bunch of other missed opportunities this film lost. I can't imagine Stephanie Plum being any funnier of a character, but I liked to imagine that Katherine Heigl could of done more with it.

What's a romantic-comedy without the romance? Obviously it comes into play at some point, and even without watching the movie you can predict the ending without any trouble. Stephanie Plum and her old high-school fling, Joe, will of course be the two connecting together and of course giving the film its "romantic-comedy" name. While this relationship is odd and mostly random, one can question the relationship throughout the entire film. It got absolutely annoying hearing their back-story throughout the entire film, when in the scenes the actors nor the dialogue did anything to make the audience believe that this relationship was ever there. It all felt fraud and needed a bit more of a realistic vibe to it.

For the most part, this is just another Katherine Heigl movie. If you are not a fan, this isn't much a movie for you to consider. It's typical Katherine Heigl, and while I hate to bash on her continuously throughout this entire review, its something that needs to be said more often than less about her acting capability. There are plenty of roles out there that I'm almost positive she can find and play a lot better than these ridiculous, same old characters shown again and again in each of her films. While I didn't hate this film and did actually find some enjoyment out of its random outburst of a story, One for the Money still could of used a lot of work. For a film based on a nineteen book series, I'm almost one-hundred percent sure this film was adapted poorly, because if this film was a perfect version of the book then I cannot imagine how it holds such a decent fan base. I doubt fans of the book got the film they were hoping for, and I really do hope they don't expect a sequel out of this. If only the film took more pressure on the material they were handling with.

Thanks for the read!

-Written by Corey Wood