While her books are quite popular, Janet Evanovich is not known for being a literary genius. She sells like hotcakes though, and has a massive group of followers. So why not adapt one of her novels into a movie starring Katherine Heigl and cash in at the box office? After seeing One for the Money, the adaptation in question, I have many reasons why not.

One for the Money is a movie so stupid and miscalculated that it hurt my brain to watch. It is not a romcom or even a regular comedy, and it’s definitely not a drama (although it thinks it’s all of those things). No, One for the Money is a giant turd shat out of the Hollywood system to be smeared on thousands of screens and is an insult to every viewer who ends up seeing it.

The plot is so simple a child could have written the script and the result would be about the same. Stephanie Plum (Heigl) is a recently unemployed, divorced, Jersey girl who convinces her cousin to give her a job as a bail bond agent (a job she has no clue how to do). Her first big case is to apprehend a wanted murderer (Jason O’Mara), who just happens to be a former fling from high school and… well you see where this predictable storyline is going, right?

Do they get handcuffed together? Yup! Does he see her naked in the shower? Of course! Do they pretend to hate each other and then end up together? Well, duh!

If this was turned into a weekly series on NBC it might be watchable. As a 106 minute skid mark in the theatre, it’s just painful. The one saving grace is Daniel Sunjata of Rescue Me and Grey’s Anatomy fame. He plays another agent named Ranger who helps out Stephanie and is a hundred times more fun to watch than Heigl and O’Mara.

Sadly, One for the Money will probably make enough money that Heigl will keep getting these one-dimensional roles and films like this will continue to be made.

* out of 5 stars