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Mad Money | 2008 | PG-13 | - 4.3.5

An upper-middle class housewife (Diane Keaton) is shocked when she realizes that she will lose her suburban home and comfortable lifestyle when her husband (Ted Danson) is downsized. Unprepared for the world of common toil, she befriends two women (Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes) who are willing to help her pull off a seemingly perfect burglary. Also with Stephen Root, Roger Cross and Adam Rothenberg. Directed by Callie Khouri. [1:44]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - There's a brief close-up shot in dim lighting of the groin area of an exotic dancer wearing a g-string and a man's hand slips folded currency into her waistband (we see her bare midriff, upper thighs and hips). A young woman is shown with her slacks down around her ankles in a restroom stall; she is wearing overly large frilly cotton panties, she fills the panties with money and she and two other women fill their bras with currency.
 A man puts his hands on a woman's clothed breasts feeling a bra stuffed with money and makes a remark about her unusually shaped breasts.
 A middle-aged husband and wife kiss and hug briefly after talking about the last time they had sex in a car.
 A male security guard waves an electronic detection wand over an older woman's chest repeatedly while wiggling his hips and his supervisor tells him to stop.
 A large-chested woman wears a very low-cut blouse revealing substantial cleavage and a male security guard trains a surveillance camera on her cleavage, lingers and then pans up to her face; his boss places his head next to the guard's, grabs the camera control, and pans the camera back to the cleavage.
 A woman goes to a man's apartment, she asks him to go out with her and he tells her that he does not want to have sex in exchange for helping her; he talks about wanting her in a different way and it is implied that he wants to marry her.
 A woman asks, "What do you call trading sex for money?" and another woman answers, "Advertising." A woman asks her husband if he'd like a lap dance when he finds her dancing in a room with two other women and throwing dollar bills in the air (nothing else happens).
 An older woman asks a younger woman if she is "ever tempted," the younger woman thinks she is talking about sex and replies (using crude descriptive terms) that she used to be but isn't anymore and the older woman clarifies that she is talking about stealing money from a bank.
 A woman says, "The last time someone told me I was 'hot' was 7 years and 9 months ago" (she has a 7-year-old son from that interaction). Two women talk about whether one of them wants sex. A woman tells another woman that she looks "hot" and should use her appearance to help them rob a bank.
 A bank security guard asks a woman to go out with him after he has just examined her purse, she rebuffs his advance, adopts an angry expression and walks out of the bank.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - In two night scenes, a watchdog barks loudly at a woman who's attempting to climb a fence, she throws a raw steak to the dog, we see the dog eating the meat and both scenes cut to four law enforcement officers running toward the house with guns drawn.
 Four officers with guns drawn enter a bathroom in a private home to find a man who smiles and surrenders. A woman burns a fire in her back yard (we see flames growing taller) and two police officers appear with guns drawn and confront her.
 A wife and husband argue in several scenes about stealing money from a bank (each of these scene ends with her walking out). A young woman says to an older woman, "I'm gonna kill you. You scared of me?" and the older woman answers yes. A woman argues briefly with her seven-year-old son about stealing and tells him that she will steal to support him but he is not to steal. A seven-year-old boy hands his mother a flyer and says, "This is the list of the lethal weapons we are not allowed to have at school." A woman in her 60s complains about an employment counselor in her 30s behaving in a "discriminatory and illegal" fashion.
 A young man and a woman blow up a trailer at night, we hear a loud explosion and see smoke and tall flames (no one is injured).

LANGUAGE 5 - 4 F-words, 1 obscene hand gesture, 4 sexual references, 8 scatological references, 4 anatomical terms, 14 mild obscenities, 1 religious profanity, 12 religious exclamations, name-calling (stupid, dimwit, white, fathead, junkie-dimwit-Martha-Stewart wannabe, sneaky-criminal), 3 derogatory remarks about middle age, 2 derogatory remarks about middle-class women who enjoy shopping, 2 derogatory remarks about white women.

SUBSTANCE USE - In four brief scenes three women drink bottles of beer, and in one of these scenes they follow the beer with shots of clear liquor, three men also drink beer, in a restaurant scene three women and three men drink wine, and in a backyard party several people drink from glasses of wine and liquor. Two women remark that another woman must be on drugs, and a woman jokes about paying for private school "in crack." A woman says she been injecting herself with insulin since age 9.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Money, the work ethic, theft, honesty, double standards, keeping items that one has stolen, downsizing and layoffs, luxuries, spending, financial hardships, work skills, education, family, age discrimination, children, happiness.

MESSAGE - Money can create opportunities for happiness.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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