Taschengeld

Bad direction, a weak script and a career-low performance by Ed Harris sideline 'Milk Money', a movie which could've been excellent, but wasn't.

Onetime-respected-actor-now-reduced-to-B-movie-star Malcolm McDowell delivers a hilarious performance with help from Melanie Griffith and talented newcomer Michael Patrick Carter, but they alone do little to rescue the film.

The first half hour or so is perfectly on tune, then everything seems to change gears and 'Milk Money' is pushed from a comedy to a sappy drama with an awful dance sequence, and an ending that's even worse. To complicate matters even more, Harris is completely miscast, and future star Anne Heche is seriously underused.

I'm sure this film is no longer considered politically correct since it involves a scene where a prostitute shows pre-teen boys her breasts, but it has a lot of cute moments and Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris have great chemistry. It made me smile more than I'd like to admit and I suppose that counts for something.

Lighten up people...this is just entertainment, not Ghandi (yawn). I found this movie to be great entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. My wife and I laughed all the way through. Excellent performances by Ed Harris, Melanie Griffith and Michael Patrick Carter. The cross communication between Harris and Griffith based on Carter's lie is hilarious.

Very conservative people might not like the plot of this film (kid tries to get his widowed dad and an ex-hooker to fall in love with each other), but actually everything is quite harmless and fun.

The story gets sometimes a bit silly (especially when the boy takes Melanie Griffith to school as part of his "science project"), but the acting and the comedy is good. There was always a smile on my lips as I watched the misunderstandings between Harris and Griffith, when the dad believes that she is a math tutor and the hooker believes he knows her true job.

Ed Harris does a good job as the shy father, and Melanie Griffith is believable as the golden hearted hooker. But it's the kid (Michael Patrick Carter) the one who steals the show, with his winning smile and his mixture of innocence and curiosity.

Milk Money (1994)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A group of young boys save up their "milk" money so that they can buy a father (Ed Harris) a hooker known as V (Melanie Griffith).

There's a bit more to the plot of MILK MONEY but that's the basic set-up. After the success of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY... these types of romantic comedies were in high demand so we got all sorts of strange stories and this here is certainly one of the strangest.

Once you get over the idea of young kids buying a hooker for dad, the film itself really isn't all that bad and in many ways it's pretty charming for what it is. You've basically got two fine actors turning in fun performances and that's what makes the film worth watching. Harris is especially good as the father who is still grieving over his wife. Griffith easily steals the film as the hooker with a heart of gold as well as a great body that is constantly in tight clothes.

The film's screenplay has a pretty basic set-up and it pretty much plays out as you would expect it to. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking here and it's not one of the best films that the genre has to offer but if you're a fan of the cast then it's worth watching.