Generally, when I spend bucks on any DVD or Blu-ray, I check out the director. Lucky McGee, who helmed the unforgettable horror chiller "May" (2002), seemed like a safe bet. I've heard of his other movie "Red." Meantime, John Cusack's presence in McGee's wilderness crime thriller "Blood Money," co-scripted by freshman scribes Jared Butler and Lars Norberg, appeared like a suitable no-brainer at 85 minutes. Wow, was I ever more wrong! This outdoors epic lensed on location in Georgia qualified as a complete waste of time. John Cusack looks like he is following in the footsteps of his "Frozen Ground" co-star Nicholas Cage. "Blood Money" was absolutely abysmal. The characters are a group of brain-dead morons. Three twentysomething nitwits who attended high school together set out to go rafting. Enough drama crops up among them to fuel a better movie. Unfortunately, Cusack enters the action early as a pilot who bails out of his single-engine plane. Of course, the plane crashes and this ignites a manhunt. Some say that they saw a parachute, too. Miller (John Cusack) is a bank of some sort, though we are never told exactly what he did. Anyway, he embezzled something like $ 8-million and stuffed it into oversized garbage bags. When he jumped out of the plane, he let the bags free fall. Mind you, crashing a plane to make a clean getaway doesn't seem very smart. The authorities will sift through the wreckage and find no evidence of a body. If this is not enough, Miller loses track of his money bags, and the three twentysomethings, Victor (Ellar Coltrane of "The Circle"), Lynn (Willa Fitzgerald of "Freak Show"), and Jeff (Jacob Artist of "White Bird in a Blizzard") discover the loot floating in the river where they are rafting. Eventually, they run into the woebegone Miller who asks for a cigarette. They shun his presence. Sadly, he figures out that they have his money. A Park Ranger dies after Miller gets his hands on the officer's handgun. The four of them thrash through the underbrush with Miller in pursuit, and Lynn makes it clear to the guys acting like knights that she doesn't need their interference. Walking around in the woods has never been this monotonous. The ending-aside from being the last part of this miserable piece of crap-is the best thing about "Blood Money." Don't be mislead by the cover picture on the Blu-Ray, Cusack has a high-powered assault rifle in his clutches. He couldn't shoot his way out of wet sack. Clearly, this was a paycheck epic for Cusack. Characterization is rather slim, but of all the characters, Lynn turns out to be the most interesting. Save your time and your money and look for something else!
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