The only thing worse than a dumb movie is a dumb movie that clocks in at two hours.  Lately it seems that a running time that shatters the 120-minute mark is a prerequisite – even for films that have very simple premises.  As a result, these interminable pictures get bogged down in unnecessary character development and boring sub-plots.  Look at The Skulls – it had the content of an after-school special and a running time that rivaled the entire Roots miniseries.  Look at the upcoming Love and Basketball – a run-of-the-mill romance that took longer to unfold than an actual NBA game.

Then look at Where the Money Is.  The script is concise and doesn’t try to be too clever or quirky.  It’s a simple story that doesn’t even threaten to present futile subplots or intense character growth.  At an ultra-lean 88 minutes, Money is short, sweet and to-the-point.  And it’s got Paul Newman playing a quick-thinking con man – a role that seems to have worked pretty well in the past for the blue-eyed septuagenarian.

Newman (Message in a Bottle) plays Henry Manning, a criminal mastermind well known for selling security systems to banks, only to rob them blind at a later date.  He’s been incarcerated, but as Money opens, we learn that Henry has just had a stroke and we see him being transported from a maximum-security prison to a nursing home in rural Oregon.  Newman nails the stroke victim role pretty well, as he sits slumped over in his chair and stares into space with a slacked jaw and the occasional twitch. Wait – that makes him sound like a wrestling fan.

Enter nurse Carol Ann McKay (Linda Fiorentino, What Planet Are You From?) who, for some reason, suspects that Henry is faking his stroke, which, of course, he is.  Carol is suspicious from the get-go, but Henry never cracks, even when she bends over to reveal her pert buttocks, or gives him a steamy lap-dance, or when she knocks boots with her husband Wayne (Dermot Mulroney, Goodbye, Lover) in Henry’s room.

Henry eventually does break (otherwise there’s wouldn’t be any point to the film), and when that happens, Carol convinces him to go after one last score, offering herself and her dimwitted husband as partners.  They target an armored car, hit a few minor snags along the way, and then the film ends.  Like I said - short, sweet and to-the-point.

Money was directed by Marek Kanievska, who hasn’t helmed a feature film project since 1987’s Brat Pack fest Less Than Zero, which, ironically, was based on a book by Brett Easton Ellis, who wrote American Psycho – one of the films Money is pitted against in this weekend’s box office race.  The screenplay was based on a story by E. Max Frye (Palmetto) and was written by Frye and debut scriptwriters Topper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright.  While their film doesn’t have much substance or style, it’s still a pleasure to watch.

1:28 – for adult language and some sexual content