Ca$h (2010) Reviews

• Pandora's box

  KnockKnock12016-01-19

  The Pandora's Box theme is a pretty common theme in crime films. Someone finds a suitcase full of cash (Shallow Grave) or something else of great value in the most ordinary of places. In this story a suitcase full of cash literally falls into the main character's lap. In the most satisfying scene of the movie (a bad sign if this scene occurs early in the film as it does here), our down on his luck blue collar hero uses the cash to pay off bad debt, sticking it up their bank manager's nose in the process. Great scene. The villain vanquished, the hero returns to his home the victor to share in the spoils with his equally "beautiful people" wife. The only trouble is, it belongs to Sean Bean, who comes after the money with all the vengeance of Ned Stark looking for his missing head. Once Ned ... whatever his name is in the movie ... finds our lovely but temporarily rich couple, he shacks up with them and the movie descends into a weak 21st century version of Fun With Dick and Jane (1977), minus the witty dialogue and great acting of that crime caper classic, in that "Ned" demands Jane and Joe Schmuck turn to a life of crime in order to pay back what little amount they had time to spend. Bet you didn't see that coming? Well I did. So I'm only giving it a 6/10

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• Watch it for Bean

  Leofwine_draca2015-05-13

  Although the execution of this film is only so-so - it straddles the line between crime thriller and quirky comedy and is not quite successful in either genre - I'd recommend watching it for Sean Bean alone. For this is a film that Bean completely dominates, appearing in almost every scene, with tons of dialogue and acting opportunity, and acting everyone else off the screen in the process. It almost feels like the film has been written as a tribute to Bean and I'm not complaining. He's a hoot as a criminal dedicated to tracking down every cent of his stolen cash, bringing plenty of his trademark deadpan humour to the part. Bean exerts an air of authority, of quiet menace, like few other actors and his presence here is second to none. His character is a guy who rarely has to resort to violence, instead controlling people through his personality alone. He's fantastic, the best I've seen him in years. The rest of the film is okay, but the director can't hide the fact that most of the budget was spent on getting Bean and the rest of it feels rather cheap and lacklustre. It's amusing to see Chris Hemsworth, pre-THOR fame, appearing here and giving a rather weak performance in contrast to Bean. And the ending is one of the lamest cop-outs I've seen in a good while. Thank God Bean is here to distract us from these shortcomings.

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• Could've been better

  rodriche2010-09-18

  I have to say this is not a bad movie at all, but I think it could be better. The movie starts with a good premise...a man who is driving down the highway suddenly finds a suitcase with more than half a millon dollars inside...what would you do? expend it? return it to the police? give it to the poor?. Unfortunately for him and his wife, he decided to expend it, only to find later on that the owner of the money has found him and wants the money back. Some of the things this man (Sean Bean) forced them to do are a little far fetched and have no sense at all. The script is far from being a master piece and the dialogues are flat, although the acting is really good, especially Sean Bean's performance. I think the director tried to mix comedy, thriller and action but failed to deliver any of them. I found the first hour of the movie very entertaining, but at the end, it got so repetitive that left me with a bittersweet taste. In conclusion, if you're looking for an entertaining movie, to watch on a Sunday afternoon, this could be it, but don't expect to see the best movie of your lives.

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• a good idea

  Vincentiu2014-09-10

  and nothing more. at first sigh. because the script is not an inspired one and the idea too seductive for explore in the best manner. the acting is far to be bad but not more than decent. a film about a suitcase with money and large references to The Box. but, unfortunately, it is not enough. so, the decent job of Sean Bean who looks to create a mix of humor and thriller who is only in few scenes reasonable. a film of a great idea. not bad, not good, only an exercise to use different ingredients, few actors and crumbs of action movies for a story who could be interesting but remains only chain of conventional solutions.

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• Ca$h Breaks Hollywood Rules

  imdb1-548-816192010-04-09

  In this day of cookie-cutter thrillers and Hollywood formula flicks, writer/director Stephen Milburn Anderson and producer Naveen Chathappuram bring us a film that shatters genre rules. It's a story about the power of money and how it manipulates human behavior. In a movie manufactured by Hollywood group-think, this film would have been about two innocent victims (Sam and Leslie) who struggle to make their mortgage payments and one day, during a police chase, a briefcase bursting with cash lands on their old car, they decide to keep the money and the bad guy comes looking for it. It would be the naive couple's story. But Ca$h isn't that simple. The story starts with Pyke Kubic (Sean Bean), a Brit flying into Chicago to help out his twin brother, Reese (Sean Bean), whose cash-laden briefcase collided with law-abiding Sam's car. So Ca$h is a brother loyalty story. Besides, the brothers make a business deal: Pyke will recover Reese's cash and they'll split it 50/50. The line blurs between the traditional antagonist and protagonist, especially as the story progresses. Pyke's unexpected accommodating manner and willingness to help Sam and Leslie collect the cash they stowed and recover the rest they spent, paint him as a likable character, not an evil antagonist. But Pyke has powers of persuasion, both intellectual and physical, and Pyke won't stop until he gets what he wants. So he moves in with Sam and Leslie until every last penny of the cash is back in the briefcase. Pyke is a savant with numbers. When he learns from Leslie the exact tally of cash that was in the briefcase, he keeps a running tab in his mind of missing cash until every cent is replaced. There is a dark gleefulness in many of the scenes. Pyke escorts the couple to Leslie's mum's house, where they've left a large sum of the cash for safekeeping. They discover that Mum has "borrowed" $600 and Pyke says, "When it comes to cash, nobody can be trusted." When Pyke takes the couple to the banker who was foreclosing on their mortgage until Sam showed up with $7,000 in cash (from the briefcase of destiny), Pyke negotiates a brilliant deal with the bank to loan the couple $11,000. Sean Bean's (Lord of the Rings, Flight Plan, Patriot Games, National Treasure) performance as Pyke is natural and intense. He draws the audience in with his character's centered calmness, unrelenting focus on his goal and precarious balance of civility and violence. Bean plays his character's genius for numbers and deal-making juxtaposed with his descent into thug-driven brutality, when absolutely necessary, with fluid complexity. Chris Hemsworth (Star Trek, A Perfect Getaway) as Sam gives us a sympathetic, yet humanly flawed character who struggles briefly with the morally right thing to do. It's easy to accept Hemsworth as Sam. He looks like a nice guy; he acts like a nice guy until Pyke shoves Sam into the black hole of criminality. Hemsworth makes the tricky transition from respectable citizen to ruthless armed robber in a convincing arc of desperate acts. Ca$h isn't a thriller in academic film terms. It's not a traditional action film, either. If the film must have a label, it is neo noir satire. Noir features a desperate protagonist who is an anti-hero. That certainly fits Sean Bean's Pyke/Reese characters. As the story progresses, it also fits Sam and Leslie as they begin to enjoy the power a gun brings to a moment of confrontation, when they're on the trigger end of the 9mm. Writer/director Stephen Milburn Anderson wrote this script in the Nineties and sat on it until he could make the movie his way. Not giving in to the hellish Hollywood development machine, Anderson and his producers bring us a "genre" film gone rogue. Just because Hollywood doesn't have the right-size box or label for Ca$h doesn't mean it's not a package worth opening. It's a surprising present of cinema delight and if you are fatigued with Hollywood drivel, Ca$h has your name on it.

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