Fredianelli struck B-movie Silver with 2011's THE SCARLET WORM, a relatively polished period film set in the old west featuring a cast with numerous professional actors and a small but dedicated crew of collaborators. His subsequent "Lone Wolf" films since then have been a bit of a step down in terms of production value, often looking more humble like student films or "porn without the porn" due to the combination of no production design, basic cinematography, and bad acting. MONEY represent somewhat of a return to form, comfortably unambitious in its setting and subject matter being set in the contemporary "real world" for a change (something not seen since his wacky underground comedy THE BIG SLEAZE) and featuring much better acting and scripting from Fredianelli and co. than I've seen in a while.
Fredianelli himself has one of the best performances in the film, playing a burnt-out hit-man who gets a great monologue in toward the conclusion. Ray Medved as a desperate man covering up his crime and the plucky & attractive young woman who plays the prostitute both turn in comparatively good work as well. There's a couple good shootout scenes which feel fairly realistic, and best of all there's an unpredictable atmosphere to the movie as it impressively defies falling into clichés or conventions. I couldn't identify any one character as a clear protagonist, even though it feels fairly conventional early on. Instead the narrative focuses more on a string of events in which a lot of disparate characters' lives are connected. None of these characters are particularly likable per-say, but as flawed individuals they come across as more human, perhaps the most vivid characterizations I've seen in a Fredianelli-penned movie so far.
The shortfalls in the movie have to do almost entirely with the budget and that the filmmaker is quite visibly overstretched, wearing almost every hat in the production and post-production area of the film. While such versatility is very impressive in principle, it also opens the film up to a lot of sloppiness which wouldn't have been an issue had there been, say, a dedicated art director or production manager. For instance, a key sequence in which an unsavory character makes a high- risk sniper shot is completely ruined because his prop weapon is obviously a BB gun with no scope! This destroys any sense of realism that the film relied on, and some weak performances really don't help matters much at all.
Added to that, a lot of the film is really slow, with static dialog scenes where characters just stand around and say things to each other. I'm sure if Fredianelli could focus on directing these scenes, there'd be a lot more life to them, but as it is I'm sure he was trying to manage just too much and had too much on his plate to really polish them as they needed. This is a shame as this film feels about 90% of the way there to having the makings of a BOONDOCK SAINTS-style underground hit. Unfortunately in such a crowded market of underfunded indie cinema, it's that last 10% that can make a huge difference in getting a film like this noticed.
