This is the kind of good kid I was in preparation for the review below. Knowing that we’d be covering Other People’s Money on our radio program, The Reel Thing, I went to one of the upper floors of the UW-SP library and checked out a copy of Jerry Sterner’s play to read in advance of seeing the film. Part of the reason, then, this is a slightly longer review than the norm for our weekly show is I had all this deep background knowledge to share.

The nineteen-eighties will be forever typified as the time when greed came to the forefront of American business. Money became the favorite fixation of all those businessmen wastin’ away down in Reaganville, and the battle cry became the oft-quoted line from Oliver Stone’s WALL STREET…”Greed is good.” That general mindset was exactly what playwright Jerry Sterner was taking shots at in 1989 when he created the play OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY, the tale of a New York City takeover artist who sets his sights on a modest Rhode Island wire and cable manufacturing company. For director Norman Jewison’s big screen adaptation of the play, the takeover artist in question is played by Danny DeVito. DeVito is perfectly cast as Lawrence Garfield, otherwise known as “Larry the Liquidator”…a donut-loving, vulgar, egotistical investment master who treats his business computer like a generous lover and whose greatest desire is acquiring other people’s money as quickly as possible. There are few other actors who can play this sort of nastiness with such vigor and delight.

Unfortunately, his chief sparring partner is not cast nearly as well. Penelope Ann Miller plays Kate Sullivan, the pretty, young lawyer that the New England Wire and Cable Company drafts to fight off the hostile takeover. Kate is supposed to be Garfield’s equal in rigid determination and forthright strength. But, as played by Miller, every statement that should be a fiery demand becomes a tentative suggestion. She should be a predator like Garfield, but she can’t muster up the power to be anything more than a guppy trapped in the shark tank. It’s hard to believe that she could effectively take on Garfield, much less win his heart. Her performance could use more solid conviction. something the entire film is sorely lacking.

Too often, the performances turn into perfunctory recitations of the script. Everyone stops acting and starts reading lines. This makes it difficult to become really invested in the values clash going on between DeVito’s Garfield and Gregory Peck’s Jorgy, the chairman of the wire and cable company. DeVito believes in the quick profit that would accompany dismantling the Rhode Island company…Peck is more concerns with maintaining the company as it’s been for nearly 75 years and preserving jobs for his hundred of employees. Their conflict lacks the proper punch, so when they face off near the end of the film, each pleading their case before an annual stockholders’ meeting, their individual speeches seem forced…sermons delivered by a pair of non-believers.

Jewison also makes a major mistake by trying to soften up Larry the Liquidator. Rather than keeping him nasty throughout the film, as Sterner did with his original play, DeVito’s character eventually develops a conscious and a big, caring heart. He opens up to true love, feels guilty about his business practices, and is redeemed in full Hollywood style. In making him more likable for the screen, Jewison has betrayed Sterner’s wonderfully cynical creation. OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY can occasionally be funny and makes some important judgments about the mindless cruelty of corporate greed. But before its point can be completely made, the film gets lost in sloppy happiness and artificial sunshine. The film version of OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY amounts to little more than a wasted opportunity. (2 stars, out of 4)