A comedy about three ordinary women who form an unlikely friendship and decide to do something extraordinary--rob one of the most secure banks in the world. Bridget Cardigan is shocked to learn that she is on the verge of losing her home and comfortable upper middle class lifestyle when her husband Don is downsized from his job. Armed only with a decades old English degree and years as a dedicated mother and corporate wife, Bridget is forced into the unfamiliar labor market with no job skills. Finally, she accepts the only position she can find--janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank. The one-time suburban mom soon discovers she has more in common with her new co-workers than she thought. Bridget forges an unexpected bond with Nina, a hard-working single mom with two kids to raise, and Jackie, an exuberant free spirit with nothing to lose. Caught up in a system that underestimates their talents and keeps their dreams just out of reach, Bridget, Nina and Jackie set out to even the score. After a lifetime of playing by the rules, the three devise a plan to smuggle soon-to-be destroyed currency out of the supposedly airtight Reserve. As the unlikely crime syndicate amasses piles of cash, it looks like they have pulled off the perfect crime--until a minor misstep alerts the authorities. With more money than they know what to do with, the women are pushed to the limits of their ingenuity to stay one step ahead of the law - skip ad - Genres: Comedy, Drama, Crime/Gangster and Remake Running Time: 1 hr. 44 min. Release Date: January 18th, 2008 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material and language, and brief drug references. Distributor: Overture Films Cast And Credits Starring: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Roger R. Cross, Adam Rothenberg Directed by: Callie Khouri Produced by: Robert O. Green, Avi Lerner, Trevor Short

Heist movies don't get more low-tech than "Mad Money." In this improbable and generally unfunny comedy, three female employees rob the Federal Reserve Bank over and over again as if it were a giant ATM: They just substitute their lock for the bank's lock on cages of paper money heading for the shredder, stuff those ragged bills in bras and panties and walk right out.

Really? OK, that probably wouldn't work, but who cares if the women are engaging and the payoff fun? Unfortunately, this is one heist picture where you root for the robbers to get caught. They are too dim-witted, unsympathetic and greedy to get away with anything.

ThThe startling combination of Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes might be the answer to a trivia question a few years hence when no one will remember that these three could have starred in a movie together. The combination of top-drawer talent will attract women, primarily older than 25, to "Money's" opening weekend, but boxoffice looks weak afterward. It certainly is an inauspicious first release for Overture Films, the movie production and distribution subsidiary of Liberty Media television giant Starz.

Keaton plays an upper-middle-class woman in Kansas City (the film actually was shot in Louisiana) whose country-club way of life is threatened when her husband (Ted Danson) gets downsized. Lacking job skills, she winds up as a cleaning lady at the Federal Reserve. Her very first thought is to rob the place.

Somehow she talks two co-workers whom she would otherwise ignore -- Latifah, a single mom who stuffs the shredding machine, and Holmes, a fellow cleaner and airhead who dances to the beat of her iPod all day -- into helping her waltz the discarded bills out of the building. One heist leads to another, greed kicks in and soon they have to draft into their gang a security guard (Roger Cross) who gets wise to their capers but has the hots for Latifah.

There's never much jeopardy or suspense involved in these repeated robberies, nor does writer Glenn Gers ("Fracture") get much mileage out of the comic predicament of three families with bundles of money they can't put into a bank or any other place that will establish a record of unearned largess. The actors mostly flounder under Callie Khouri's direction. Their characters fail to engage, and in Keaton's case line readings and other business come off as downright abrasive.

You do wonder why Khouri didn't take a crack at elevating the script, which is based on a British telefilm "Hot Money." Stranger still is that no one thought to look at Latifah's 1996 film, "Set It Off," an action movie about female bank robbers, where the filmmakers keenly observe the lives of their thieves to explain the desperation behind their brazen behavior.