Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you a comedy, crime, thriller film from 2008, titled Mad Money.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
One night in Kansas, three women and their families are in the process of destroying
a huge amount of money when the police arrive at their houses to arrest them.
There's single mother Nina Brewster and her sons; Jackie Truman and her husband Bob Truman,
and lastly, Bridget Cardigan and her husband Don Cardigan.
While Don continues to shred bills down the toilet, Bridget puts some money in a bag and
escapes through the backyard, using some meat she's taken from the fridge to distract the
neighbor's dog and reach her car safely.
This mess started three years ago, when Bridget attends a party thrown by her neighbors Mindy
and Bryce Arbogast, who she hasn't seen in a while because she doesn't go to the club
since Don lost his job a year ago.
It's through Mindy that Bridget learns her husband is selling their house, so she rushes
back and has a big argument with him about it.
Don explains they're drowning in debt and he hasn't been able to find a new job because
of his age, and Bridget gets even angrier at him for not having told her before to cut
down their expenses.
Seeing as he won't do anything to solve this problem, she decides she will try to find
a job for herself.
This proves to be extremely difficult.
Bridget has been a housewife for most of her life, her degree is in comparative literature,
and she has limited computer knowledge, not to speak of her age.
After failing at finding anything at a job office, Bridget tries the newspaper ads to
no avail.
One afternoon, she's approached by her housecleaner, who is complaining about her paycheque having
bounced again.
Seeing as Bridget doesn't have any money to pay her, she decides to give her the number
of a place she knows that can get her a job.
Bridget ends up working as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank.
While she's being shown around the area, she meets her new boss Glover, who promises her
everyone is being watched at all times, and Nina, who works with the dollar bill shredder.
She's quite impressed by the access she has to all the different rooms filled with money,
and how many bills go to the trash every day just because they're old and worn out.
After her workday is done, she returns home and refuses to talk to Don about her day,
too tired to do so.
When the kitchen tap breaks and she has no other choice but to visit the homecenter,
Bridget sees all the products on display, especially the padlocks, and slowly begins
to form a plan to steal money from the Reserve Bank.
The next day, she pays extra attention to the position of every camera and the route
the cash carts make.
There are only three keys that can open it: one it's in the sorting room, another one
is held by an agent in the inspection room, and the last one is in the shredding room.
She also tests various employees' morals to see if they would keep a bill found on the
ground, but everyone so far is too nice and not trustworthy.
Jackie's route with her cart and the way she comes off as an airhead because of how she
loses herself in her music, however, do gain Bridget's attention.
At the end of the day, every employee has their bags looked over by security guards
Barry Cobb and Shaun, who keeps hitting on Nina.
After turning him down again, she leaves the building, only to be approached by Bridget
and her crazy proposition.
At first, Nina thinks she's a mole hired by the higher-ups, but when she realizes she's
being serious about robbing the bank, she turns down her offer and goes home to her
kids.
Bridget doesn't give up though, and she follows her there, first calling her on the phone
and then directly appearing at her door to keep on trying to convince her to join her
heist.
Nina turns her down every time and sends her away, only to start reconsidering changing
her mind the next day when she finds in her locker all the fliers Bridget left for her
there, showing her the amazing schools she could be sending her kids to if she had the
money.
During lunchtime, Nina meets with Bridget in the bathroom and finally accepts to join
her but only after threatening her in case things go wrong, because she's a single mother
and can't afford to lose her kids.
They only need one more person from the carts sector, so they choose Jackie, who they approach
in the parking lot when she accidentally drops her purse, and they can't help noticing a
syringe among her things.
They invite Jackie to have a drink with them at a bar managed by Bridget's friend Junior,
who scolds them for talking too loudly about illegal plans.
Jackie immediately accepts to join the team without even stopping to think about it, and
when Nina and Bridget show concern about her addiction and ask her to quit, Jackie is so
touched by this gesture that she decides not to bring up the syringe is for her diabetes
injections.
They also agree on a secret gesture they'll use when they're ready to strike: a touch
of their eyebrows.
The next day, Bridget hides the new padlock behind her belt, so when she goes through
the metal detector at work, the guards will think the buckle is what got a reaction.
During lunch, Bridget makes their special gesture and Nina returns it, but Jackie just
shakes her head.
The three of them rush to the bathroom to discuss what happened, and Jackie confesses
she had a bad feeling.
Bridget and Nina find the idea absurd and want Jackie out of the team, but hours later,
they have to eat their words when Glover decides to do a full random security search.
The following day, things do work out for them.
The three of them make the gesture and silently agree to get the plan rolling, starting with
Bridget in the inspection room.
She pretends to clean the cash boxes and finds one that's been opening for inspection, putting
her body between it and the camera to hide the fact she's changing the bank lock for
the one she bought.
Then she takes the hallway, where she comes across Jackie to tell her the number of the
chosen box, and she also writes it on a piece of paper that she leaves with the real padlock
on the bathroom's trash can for Nina to find.
Next is Jackie's turn, who is in charge of moving cash carts around the building.
She takes the one Bridget chose and while waiting for the elevator, she positions herself
between the cart and the camera and opens the padlock to take out some money and hide
it in the trash can behind her while pretending to be dancing.
Then she takes the cart to the shredding room, where Nina puts back the real padlock while
Bridget does her usual trash can rounds and recovers the money, hiding it among her cleaning
products.
The three women later meet in the bathroom and divide the money, hiding it under their
clothes.
At the end of the day, Bridget and Nina pass the control with no issues, but they're worried
about Jackie, who has some bills peeking out of her pants.
Nina begins delaying the queue by flirting with Barry, but things suddenly get tense
when Glover shows up looking rather angry.
Luckily, he just wants to scold Bridget for dropping her entrance card, and his presence
makes Jackie double-check herself, finally hiding the bills in her pants.
The three women then go to Bridget's house to count the money and divide it equally,
and end up throwing it at each other in celebration.
This is how Don finds them, and he isn't happy to hear his wife is now a criminal.
He wants Bridget not to do it again, but she refuses: their little plan will be repeated
until they can pay off all their bills.
While Nina goes to a fancy school to enroll her kids there, Bridget and Don go to their
bank to deposit some money, always keeping it under nine thousand so it isn't reported
to the IRS.
Don is still a bit frustrated by this whole crime business, but he's also impressed by
Bridget's intelligence, so they end up making out in the car.
Months start to pass and the three women continue to rob the bank.
Glover never catches them, no matter how all over the employees he is, and they pass every
control without issues.
Bridget recovers her house, and Nina can keep her kids in the fancy school with all the
supplies they may need.
Six months later, the three of them with Don and Bob have dinner together at a very nice
restaurant, where they celebrate the fact they've paid all their bills and have gotten
everything they needed.
Bridget, however, wants to keep going.
Jackie and Bob agree, but Don and Nina don't, so Bridget gives them a speech about they've
always been treated like dirt by their bosses, how Don was fired after years of service,
how Nina should have money for her kids' university and Jackie should be able to travel around
the world, and most importantly, how important it is to be financially safe.
Nina gives in and accepts to keep going but under one condition: they shouldn't make any
big purchases not to call anyone's attention.
Once they have enough money, they can move somewhere else where people won't know how
much money they're supposed to have.
Bridget doesn't like it, but she has no other choice to accept because she can't keep on
stealing without Nina's help.
Bridget breaks her promise pretty quickly, though, and buys an incredibly expensive ring
for herself.
But she can't fool Nina, who corners her in the bathroom at work and takes off Bridget's
glove, finding the ring on her finger.
As punishment for not keeping her word, Nina takes the ring and flushes it down the toilet
before reminding Bridget of the rules.
Some days later, in the very same bathroom, Nina is pacing the floor while playing with
the lock key in her hand, worried about her friend being late.
When Bridget finally arrives, she throws the lock bag at her in a hurry, and as she catches
it, Nina accidentally drops the key in the sink drain.
Bridget can't go back to the first floor to ask Jackie for the other key because breaking
her daily route would be suspicious, and she doesn't have Jackie's phone number, so she
stays in the bathroom and calls her husband while Nina goes back to her work station before
they notice she's gone.
Don goes to see Bob at his workplace to make him call Jackie and warn her of the problem.
Bob's boss sees him using his phone instead of working, and when Bob refuses to go back
to his job, he gets fired.
It takes Don a long time to get back to Bridget to tell her Jackie will find a way to pass
the key, so Glover finds it suspicious that she is spending so much time in the bathroom
and goes to confront her.
Bridget manages to get out of trouble by pretending to be incredibly upset about the way the bank
employees make a mess out of the bathroom, even yelling in such a hysterical way that
scares Glover off.
At the elevator doors, Jackie hides the key in her chewed bubblegum, intending to sneakily
stick it to the walls.
When the elevator opens, however, two men are inside, so she pretends to be offended
by them and throws the bubblegum at their heads in fury.
The men dodge it and the gum with the key is stuck on the elevator wall, so it will
be taken to Bridget's floor where she retrieves it.
Meanwhile, Nina can't open the cart padlock because she doesn't have the right key.
Barry tries to help her because sometimes the lock gets stuck and gets surprised when
he can't open it either, but luckily for them, Bridget arrives right them.
She asks Barry to open the door and while he's distracted, she throws the key at Nina,
who proceeds to finally open the lock.
She smiles at Barry, letting him know she's finally cracked the problem, but he can't
help noticing the real key is hanging on its usual spot as if it hadn't been grabbed again.
Bridget calls Don, who is hanging out with Bob, to let him know everything is fine.
Don apologizes to Bob for causing him to lose his job, but Bob doesn't care, because he
hated it.
Don finds this very interesting, because he's starting to think he misses his own.
After work, Barry waits for Nina in the parking lot and tells her he knows what's going on,
but he just asks Nina to inform her team that it's over before he leaves.
The three women get together to discuss the problem at Junior's, who gifts them some shots.
Since Barry is obviously into Nina, they think they may use this for their advantage, but
Nina doesn't want to do that kind of thing for money.
She thinks they should include Barry in the team, but since the other two insist on the
date idea, Nina promises she'll choose accordingly when the time comes.
After dressing up nicely, Nina goes to visit Barry at his apartment, not knowing he lives
with his sick mother.
She tells him that the money could give him anything he wants, and she's willing to go
on a date with him some time as well, but Barry turns her down.
The next day, Bridget corners him in the bathroom to interrogate his choices, because she doesn't
understand how a heterosexual man could turn down money and a beautiful woman.
Moments later, Bridget goes back to her friends and informs them that Barry has accepted to
join the team, he just doesn't want the date to be part of the deal because Nina is worth
more than that.
Later in the evening, they divide the money with him at Bridget's home, and now he's working
with them, he can tell them when there'll be surprise inspections.
Before leaving, Nina apologizes to Barry for having come onto him for the money, and they
both admit they are interested in each other without needing to be a transaction.
They end up making out in Bridget's closet.
Meanwhile, Bridget is getting tired of not being able to use the money.
Don, who misses his administrator job and doesn't want to lose Bridget, joins the team
to guide them on how to lie about their work and make it seem like they're making more
money than they actually are.
Nina will make up a boyfriend that is out of town a lot and always sends her gifts;
Bob will say he's doing day-trading online; Barry will pretend his mom got a big insurance
settlement; and Don himself will say he's doing freelance consulting.
From then on, not only do they keep on stealing the money, they start spending it as well.
Jackie and Bob get a bike, an electric guitar, and a new, bigger motorhome; Nina moves from
her tiny house to a big one in the suburbs; and Bridget and Don do some house renovation
on top of buying tons of clothes and shoes.
They don't encounter any issues except for the matter of where to hide so much money.
Three years after their first heist, Bridget is throwing a party at her house when she
notices a guest that she doesn't recognize.
She quickly forgets about him, though, when her husband tells her he's found a new job
and Nina shows them her engagement ring.
The following day, Glover is giving that very same guy a tour of the bank, and he takes
the cash cart Jackie was supposed to deliver with him as an example of the money route.
She gets together with the team in the bathroom and lets them know of this change in the routine,
claiming she has a bad feeling about this too.
They agree to stay calm and try to learn more before making any decisions, but Bridget can't
help freaking out a bit when later she continues to do her job and notices the man is the same
that had been at her party.
This man is Federal Bank Examiner Mandelbrot, and in the privacy of an office, he confronts
Glover on the matter of some of his employees potentially having stolen money from the bank.
Glover is extremely prideful about the bank's security, though, and refuses to admit anyone
could've stolen from him.
So he kicks Mandelbrot out until he brings him actual proof.
As Mandelbrot goes to Bridget's town to ask the neighbors some questions, Don finds out
he's an examiner and begs his wife to call a lawyer and turn themselves in, but Bridget
refuses because this would cause the law to take Nina's kids away.
All three of their homes are under surveillance now, so the three couples get together to
discuss how to proceed.
Bridget thinks they haven't arrested them yet because they have no proof, so they should
do nothing and act normal while being careful with how they spend their money.
Bob then confesses that he may've not been very careful, because he took the cover story
of day trading seriously and actually started doing it.
Since he invested more than ten thousand dollars, the transaction was reported to the IRS, explaining
why they're suddenly being investigated.
Bridget insists the police have no proof, but Nina reminds her the money hidden in their
houses counts as proof, so they all agree to destroy it when they get home regardless
of Bridget's protests.
Before leaving, Barry tells Nina that he knows how cops work and they only need one guy to
speak to get everyone, so if they're caught, she should make a deal quickly to save her
kids and nobody will blame her for it.
Now the story loops back to the beginning.
Jackie and Bob make their old motorhome explode with the money inside and try to escape in
the new one, but they're caught before they can even leave the area.
Nina is caught lighting the bills on fire, Barry is found putting the money in his car,
and Don is caught shredding the bills down the toilet, but Bridget manages to escape
in her car, unaware Mandelbrot is following her.
She stays the night in a hotel under a fake name after bribing the receptionist so she
wouldn't ask for a credit card, and the next morning, while she has breakfast at the hotel's
restaurant, she's approached by Mandelbrot.
He asks her some questions to try to satisfy his curiosity, but Bridget reminds him he
can't arrest her because he isn't a cop and leaves.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team is being interrogated by the police.
Bob refuses to talk without a lawyer, Don pretends not to care that his wife left him,
and Nina is offered a deal for the sake of her kids.
She thinks about it for a couple of hours and decides to accept it, but the cop tells
her it's too late: Jackie made a deal first.
Surprisingly, however, she didn't ask for her own freedom: she asked for Nina to walk
so she could go home to her family.
Bridget goes to see her neighbors and asks Bryce to be her lawyer.
He usually doesn't do legal work, but changes his mind when he sees all the money she has
to offer.
The two of them go to the police station and Bryce introduces himself as the lawyer for
all the team members.
Just like Bridget had said in the past, the police don't have any proof the money is stolen,
not even when they bring in Glover to interrogate him as well, because he keeps on being sure
nobody could've robbed his bank in three years without raising alarm.
The cops don't have a case, but the IRS does: if the money is legal, then they should've
paid taxes.
In the end, they reach a deal: they're allowed to walk free with no fines or penalties as
long as they give all the money back, and of course, they accept.
After leaving the station, all of them share a hug before each couple goes on their own
way.
Eight months later, the women get together at Junior's once more and share how they're
doing in their lives.
Nina's honeymoon only lasted two days and the whole family is living in a tiny apartment,
but they have two incomes, so they're doing fine.
Jackie is waitressing and Bob got his old job back, now they're saving money to visit
South America in five years.
Bridget's news is something else: she comments on the expression "mad money", which says
that women always keep some money hidden just in case, before showing her friends the big
surprise - all this time, she has been hiding money in Junior's deposit, which they can
now use to finally have the life they wanted.