One for the Money (2012)

Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin's bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past.

Director:

Julie Anne Robinson

Writers:

Stacy Sherman (screenplay), Karen Ray (screenplay)

Stars:

Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Daniel Sunjata

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Katherine Heigl	...	Stephanie Plum
Jason O'Mara	...	Joseph Morelli
Daniel Sunjata	...	Ranger
John Leguizamo	...	Jimmy Alpha
Sherri Shepherd	...	Lula
Debbie Reynolds	...	Grandma Mazur
Debra Monk	...	Mrs. Plum
Nate Mooney	...	Eddie Gazarra
Adam Paul	...	Bernie Kuntz
Fisher Stevens	...	Morty Beyers
Ana Reeder	...	Connie
Patrick Fischler	...	Vinnie Plum
Ryan Michelle Bathe	...	Jackie
Leonardo Nam	...	John Cho
Annie Parisse	...	Mary Lou

Storyline

After losing her job, Jersey girl Stephanie Plum is broke. Needing a job she is told that her cousin, a bail bondsman, needs someone to help out in the office. But the only job openings he has are for skip tracers. She learns that Joe Morelli, a guy she knew intimately years ago, is one of the "skips". She eventually finds him but wasn't really prepared so he gets away. Another bounty hunter, Ranger, tries to teach her. Eventually she finds Morelli again, but he claims he is innocent of the crime he is accused of and he is trying to prove his innocence. Eventually Stephanie thinks he's telling the truth so she stakes out the person who can help him. She only finds herself in trouble and Morelli saves her. She tries to find someone who can prove his innocence, but the problem is that shortly after meeting with them they're killed or attacked.

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Plot Keywords:

strong female character | strong female lead | tough woman | self defense | woman | 

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Taglines:

She's looking for a few not-so-good men.

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Crime | Romance | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual references and language, some drug material and partial nudity

Did You Know?

Trivia

Katherine Heigl's hair in the movie is actually a wig, as she wanted it to stay true to its description in the books and it would've been difficult to get her real hair to look like Stephanie's should.

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Goofs

When Joe Morelli is taping the wire to Stephanie's body, her bra is revealed to be dark purple. After she puts her shirt back on, in the next scene, a piece of her bra is visible under her armpit and is a light color, white or beige.

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Quotes

Stephanie Plum: [v.o] The clock on the dash told me I was five minutes late, and a lifetime with my mother told me she'd think that meant I was dead.
Mrs. Plum: I thought you were dead!
Stephanie Plum: Five minutes late, Ma. What's for dinner?
Mrs. Plum: Pot roast.
Stephanie Plum: Yum.
Mrs. Plum: Dried out, but...
Stephanie Plum: [v.o] As for my dad, those five minutes were spent contemplating how to kill Grandma Mazur and where to bury the body.

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Connections

Referenced in Raaz Reboot (2016)

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Soundtracks

All Day
Written by E. Foxx
Performed by The Black Mob Group

User Reviews

I wanted to love One for the Money...I really did.

I wanted to love "One for the Money", and I should have. It had fantastic source material, a writer from one of my favorite shows ("Nurse Jackie"), and an actress from what used to be one of my favorite shows ("Grey's Anatomy"), but this film could not have been any more disastrous. There was a movie that I hated a few years ago called "The Bounty Hunter", with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. I felt like that film was as contrived as could be, and was unfunny, unromantic and incredibly unconvincing. I hate to say that "One for the Money fell into that same ball park.

One of the reasons why I love the book, "One for the Money", by Janet Evanovich is because its heart, Stephanie Plum was an unapologetic badass, profane and saucy. I always pictured someone like Sandra Bullock playing the lead role, a born-and-raised Jersey girl who was down on her luck, who finds her inner badass through a series of misadventures, but ultimately comes out on top in the end.

I don't necessarily blame Katherine Heigl for ruining this movie. She did the best she could, even though her Jersey accent is laughably bad. She was simply miscast. She should have never discontinued her work on "Grey's Anatomy, because if these are the kinds of roles she's getting, her future's only going to get worse.

Julie Ann Robinson ("The Last Song") directed, who I blame for the movie's obviously unclear vision. You get the idea that she didn't know what she wanted this movie to be. Maybe she thought that after all of the books that had been written, fans don't remember the first chapter of the franchise. Did she and the rest of the filmmakers intend this to be a film franchise as well? You get the idea that no one really cared, given the film's messy ending and sitcom-y writing.

Liz Brixius (Nurse Jackie), Karen McCullah Lutz (Legally Blonde) and Kristen Smith (The Ugly Truth) are responsible for the travesty of a screenplay. Women ARE funny. There have been so many funny and smart movies that had primarily female writers, actors and directors, so why does this film seem misogynist? It's a mixed message, and an implication that I really don't like. Their version of Stephanie Plum is an idiot. She's not a saucy badass, like the one I loved in the books. Her profanity is turned down, too, because of the meaningless desire that the filmmakers must have had to get a PG-13 rating. Why would kids want to see this movie? Oh, of course...Katherine Heigl's inevitable "sideboob".

I enjoy the work of Liz Brixius, considering that she is the creator of one of my favorite shows, "Nurse Jackie". She has shown over the years that she knows how to properly illustrate complicated characters. She is not beyond character development, and making characters fully realized...so what went wrong here? Why didn't she scream at the other two writers, "what the hell are you doing?!"

I can only imagine how bad true fans of the books felt about this travesty. There are eighteen Stephanie Plum novels, plus short stories, novellas and crossovers. People clearly like this character, and there have got to be a bunch of true fans out there. The first book was written in 1994, and there was talk of a movie then. It had been in development hell since then, and it's a shame to say that it probably should have stayed there.

Grade: D-

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 January 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

One for the Money

Filming Locations:

Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$40,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$11,515,790, 29 January 2012

Gross USA:

$26,414,527

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$38,084,162

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lakeshore Entertainment, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Datasat Dolby Digital SDDS Dolby Surround 7.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1