Recently divorced, Jersey girl Stephanie Plum (Katherine Heigl) is desperate for work after losing her job selling lingerie at a high-end department store, and facing a mounting pile of bills. Despite her lack of experience, Plum takes a job with her cousin’s bail bonds company as a skip tracer. Stephanie’s first big job involves tracking Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara), who also just happens to be the guy who took her virginity at 17. Though she’s able to find him several times, Stephanie is such an awful bounty hunter that he’s able to charm his way to freedom time and time again.
Aside from a lousy New Jersey accent, Heigl is actually almost tolerable in this role. However, fans of Janet Evanovich’s books are likely to notice the lack of genuine thrills and free flowing narrative that helped make the Stephanie Plum series as popular as it is. One for the Money is the first book of eighteen in the Stephanie Plum series. As such, it’s quite surprising that screenwriter Liz Brixius (with Stacey Sherman and Karen Ray) and director Julie Anne Robinson (The Last Song) would develop such a blatantly formulaic film. We get Stephanie eccentric relatives, highlighted by a wonderful performance by Debbie Reynolds as Stephanie’s oddball grandmother (note to Hollywood: get Ms. Reynolds more work!); Stephanie’s idiotic cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) and his wisecracking secretary Connie (Ana Reeder).
Lacking any crime fighting skills—like the ability to actually shoot a gun or use a pair of handcuffs—a hunky bounty hunter named Ranger (Daniel Sunjata) is brought in to show her the ropes. However, if you expect One for the Money to turn into an all out actioner, forget it. This is screwball stuff; you get elderly nudists, wacky witnesses, chicken shooting grandmas, and hookers.
While One for the Money had potential, the biggest problem with it likely lies with director Julie Anne Robinson who doesn’t seem to know what to do with the franchise. She has an interesting array of characters at her disposal, but does nothing memorable with them. Worse yet, she has a well established character in Stephanie Plum and doesn’t even both to use the idiosyncrasies of the character that her fans know so well, to advance the story. Since One for the Money was clearly supposed to be the start of a franchise, it will be interesting to see what Lionsgate does with this after such a box office disappointment.
Rendered in its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1, this 1080p transfer is a fairly good one. Sharpness and contrast are just about as good as it gets, while colors are accurate throughout. Flesh tones are accurate and black levels acceptable. With no noticeable digital anomalies to report, viewers should be pleased with this transfer.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is solid as well, providing clear dialogue as well as some welcome atmospherics. The surrounds provide nice sound effects when gunplay is involved.
English, English SDH, and Spanish are provided.
Along with a Digital Copy of the film, the following special features are available.
- Making the Money: Behind the Scenes (HD; 11:01) cast and crew discuss the challenges of making a popular book into a film.
- Bond Girls: Kicking Ass in the Bail Bonds Industry (HD; 10:28) real life skip tracing females discuss their profession. Honestly, I found this more interesting than the film.
- Gag Reel (HD; 2:37) typical stuff. Move on.
- Deleted Scene (HD; 00:47) features O’Mara and Heigl making out in a car with no context given.
- Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:32)
