Director: Ramon Menendez
Cast: John Cusack, Debi Mazar, Michael Madsen

There's one certain true story that I first heard when I was a child and has, for some reason, stuck with me for years after. It involved an American man who had a grandfather that died. After his grandfather's death, he learned that his grandfather had a life insurance policy, and that he would be receiving the benefits. But what he got was a surprise. He got fifty thousand dollars. That alone was bizarre, but what it made it even more bizarre was that the man started to receive a payment of fifty thousand dollars every month. The man knew that something was seriously wrong, and he made repeated calls to the life insurance company to tell them that some mistake was being made. But the man kept being told that nothing was wrong. So with every fifty thousand dollar check he received, he deposited it into a bank account and did not touch it. This went on for over a year. Then one day, someone at the life insurance company found out that there was a bug in their computer system, a bug that added three extra zeros to the man's monthly payment - he was to have actually received just fifty dollars a month. Of course, when the life insurance company found out what had been happening, they were both horrified and embarrassed. But that did not stop them from immediately sending the man a message that a mistake had been made, and they wanted their money back. Now. Fortunately, as I said, the man had been depositing all the money he had been receiving and not spending it, so he was able to immediately make out a check for the insurance company for over one million dollars.

Some of you may be wondering why that particular true story has stuck with me several decades after first reading it. Two reasons, as it turns out. As you may have guessed, I often find it funny when a major business makes a big mistake, probably just like you. Another reason, though, is that the story reminds me that when it comes to situations like that - where people get into their hands money that doesn't belong to them - that there are a few people out there smart enough to do the right thing and return the money. I say this, because over the years I have come across a number of true stories of people getting a lot of money not belonging to them and not returning it as immediately as possible. For example, I once saw on a talk show a story about a guest whose bank account had accidentally been given a deposit of a substantial amount of money. What did the guy do upon seeing this? He used the money to pay off his student debt and to buy a lot of luxuries. And when the bank found its mistake and tried to get its money back, the money had been spent. So the guest was on his way to criminal court. Watching that show, I wanted to shout at that man, "Are you stupid?!? Didn't you know that not only what you were doing was illegal, but also that banks keep careful records of transactions and would inevitably track down where their lost money had gone to?" Apparently he didn't. For that matter, when the surprisingly sympathetic talk show host quizzed his audience as to what they would do if the same situation happened to them, most (if not all) of the audience shouted out loud that they would PARTY! with the money that did not belong to them.

I can tell you that if the same situation happened to me, the first thing I would do is inform my bank that some kind of gross error had happened. Of course, I would be tempted to use the money, but I know I wouldn't like to be robbed of my personal assets. As well, I would know that the bank would inevitably find out about their mistake, and I sure would not like to even remotely risk being arrested and charged with a crime. And something else to remember: Cameras are everywhere now, so stealing in any manner or in any location is now much harder than ever. But temptation is, well, tempting, and as I indicated just a few sentences ago, part of me can understand why people coming across money that doesn't belong to them might choose to try and keep the money. Observing their reasoning and seeing them decide to take a big risk can indeed be interesting. This is the theme of the movie Money For Nothing, and it explains a lot about why I was interested in watching it. But there were other reasons as well. Based on a true story, it was a major Hollywood studio film, but the studio ultimately decided to not give it a big push in theaters, maybe because of a certain real-life tragedy that happened just before its release. What exactly that incident was I'll reveal shortly. The true story involved a man from Philadelphia by the name of Joey Coyle, who in the movie is played by John Cusack (Say Anything). At the start of the movie, it's revealed that he is unemployed and struggling. So when opportunity comes one day, it's understandable that he seizes it. That opportunity comes when a bag of over one million dollars accidentally falls out of an armored truck travelling through his neighborhood. Moments after it happens, Joey comes across the bag and immediately decides he will keep it. He puts trust with his ex-girlfriend Monica (Debi Mazar, Goodfellas) and his reluctant best friend Kenny (Michael Rapaport, Deep Blue Sea) to keep his secret and help decide what to do with the money. But local detective Laurenzi (Michael Madsen, Executive Target) is quickly put on the case once it's discovered the money is missing, and he's determined to track down the missing million. But time might run out sooner than expected for Joey when he decides to enlist the aid of a member of the local mafia (future Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro, Traffic) to launder his ill gotten gains.

I guess this is as good a place as any in this review to explain what the real-life tragedy was that surrounded Money For Nothing just before the Disney company gave it a fairly low-key and somewhat limited theatrical release: The real Joey Coyle, apparently struggling with a major drug addiction, committed suicide by hanging himself. I knew about this tragedy before sitting down to watch the movie, and I couldn't help but wonder if the movie would be able to raise itself out of the bleakness surrounding it. One thing I felt was some careful attempts at humor (though maybe not too much humor) in this cinematic telling might be able to do it. The makers of this movie did have a partial grasp of this, since the story thankfully unfolds for the most part fairly seriously. When the movie does try for a lighter touch, the humor is generally not that broad, though in the second half there are a few goofy moments such as when Joey is trying one way or another to hide the money from other people (such as putting it under his toilet, ho ho.) These moments do somewhat feel jarring and seem to come from another movie. But as I said, most of the humor leans to being low key. There is still a problem with these lighter moments, and that is that they are not very funny at all. These attempts at humor are generally centered around the fact that the character of Joey is both a desperate individual as well as someone who doesn't have the greatest smarts compared to others in his neighborhood. Granted, these charater traits have been successfully mined for humor in other movies. But in Money For Nothing, it just doesn't work at all. Joey's desperateness often comes as someone seemingly completely blind about circumstances and consequences, and his stupidity just seems frustrating from someone who should be of reasonable intelligence. As a result, we quickly become frustrated with this guy, and nothing he does can compensate for his rubbing the wrong way with viewers.

As I indicated earlier, the movie generally takes the situation in a serious manner, and the dramatic portions are more successful that the comedy... but only partially. There are a few dead serious moments that do start off well enough, such as the scene where Joey's family finds out that he has the money, and he desperately tries to charm and convince them. But this scene, as well as the other moments that have intriguing beginnings, end rather abruptly and simply don't deal with the situation enough. I do realize that some problems in life can't be resolved right away, but even then, these moments should have had the characters discussing the issues with more depth right there and then. In fact, the movie as a whole seems to be reluctant to put more meat in the narrative. The aforementioned supporting characters get very little to do. Joey's best friend Kenny, who discovered the money with Joey, gets very little to do after he tells Joey he wants no part of the money. Detective Laurenzi occasionally is shown poking around, but we learn nothing particularly interesting about him or his style of detective work. And Monica clearly is only helping her former boyfriend Joey because she wants to share the great amount of money he now has. That's sad (and bad) enough, but we also don't get any kind of clue as to what attracted these two complete opposites in the first place. She, as well as those other aforementioned supporting characters, are more like devices to pad out the movie than being fleshed-out people who could heavily influence what is going on for everybody involved. And boy, does this make the narrative more often than not extremely slow, and director Ramon Menendez (Stand And Deliver) makes this worse by using such a casual directorial style that very little onscreen elements manage to stand out and stay with you while watching the movie or when remembering it afterwards.

As for the central character played by John Cusack, despite getting the most focus out of everyone in the movie, I often didn't know what to think of this guy when he wasn't thinking and acting very idiotically. Given that I've mentioned that the supporting characters are thin and forgettable, it should come as no surprise that Joey Coyle is just the same. We never find out why Coyle at the beginning of the movie is presently struggling and having to live in his mother's house. And when he does find the money, it's less than ten minutes into the running time, so the movie has no more time to explore what this guy is like before getting his fortune (and subsequently, his curse.) What we do learn about him after that point isn't all that interesting. I mentioned before that the character seems too dumb to be endearing, but there's also the fact that almost all of his relationships with the other characters are seriously lacking warmth. For example, when he tracks down his ex-girlfriend, he doesn't even start his reconnection by saying "How are you?" - he just immediately asks her how he can hide his ill-gotten gains. Saddled with a character that lacks depth or anything interesting or endearing, Cusack's lack of enthusiasm is often very clear. Even the rare moments when his character has to show great emotion, the tone coming from Cusack sounds extremely forced and unnatural. A few of the supporting players, like Del Toro and Fionnula Flanagan (Crossover) as Coyle's mother, do put some life with the limited material they are given to work with, but it's little compensation. If you decide to buy or rent this movie, you'll find that you'll essentially get nothing for your money.

(Posted June 28, 2023)