Age has pared Paul Newman's fine features to a sketch - it's also honed his huge movie appeal to such basics that he can pretty much maintain our attention while in a coma. But as if to test his powers, in the shagging and intriguing caper "Where the money is", Newman plays Henry, a former famous bank robber and current guest of the prison system who actually is in a coma, or at least a stroke like state of suspended animation. Slumped and glazed, Henry sits for hours in his wheelchair at the nursing home to which he has been transferred tended to by Carol (Linda Fiorentino) a less than angelic nurse and onetime prom queen. Carol lives with her husband, in the same drab town where she grew up. She's bored as a former prom queen always is. And she's convinced that Henry - who had led the only interesting life around - is faking his stupor. So she bamboozles him into dropping his act, then promises to keep the secret, if he'll include her on just one more Bonnie and Clyde size heist. British director Marek Kanievska counts on the audience knowing that Newman's fame is tied to playing heist pros and hustlers, and that we're not just seeing some gravel voiced coot in a wheelchair - we're seeing what Butch Cassidy might have become had he not messed up in Bolivia. The minimalist acting the star has done in recent films like "Message in a bottle" and "Nobody's fool" serves him well, because he's confident - rightfully so- that the audience will fill in the blanks. Incorrigible Henry is fundamentally opaque, but canny Newman lets his eyes do the talking. As for Fiorentino, the star of "The last seduction" reprises her dangerous, restless woman persona as if to remind us (and casting agents) that if she got every role currently going to Catherine Zeta Jones, movies would be a lot more interesting. The payoff is the clash between a taciturn bandit faking feebleness and an angry Florence Nightingale, faking compassion, played by two actors who are the real thing.
Review of Where the Money Is
