‘Money for Nothing’ (R)

"Money for Nothing" is a movie that is almost very good; it gets close to being a deft modern fable but flirts with cheap comedy too often to make a solid commitment.

It has a meaty premise: the corrupting but irresistible lure of free money, specifically $1.2 million found by an unemployed longshoreman (John Cusack) after it falls out of an armored car. Writers Tom Musca (who also produced) and Ramon Menendez (who also directed) make it clear from the outset that this will be a complex tale; the money was lost because of the venality of the company's owners. If they hadn't laid off the employee who rode in the back with the money, stinted on vehicle maintenance and enforced a tight delivery deadline, the money never would have fallen off the truck in the first place.

Set in gritty, working-class Philadelphia (played by gritty, working-class Pittsburgh), the characters are struggling to survive. Families are close, like the row houses in which they live, each one leaning against the next in a mutual effort to keep from tumbling down.

When Joey Coyle and his friend Kenny Kozlowski find the money on their way back from another fruitless morning waiting for work, their reactions are completely different. The ingenuous Kozlowski (Michael Rapaport) recoils with horror -- the money must be given back, he argues; it isn't theirs, they will get in trouble.

Likewise Coyle's older brother, Billy, is utterly convinced of the wrongness of keeping the money. But his character presents another element of moral ambiguity: As the longshoreman in charge of calling the day's workers, he won't hire his brother so as not to appear to show favoritism. As a result the younger Coyle is jobless, facing an uncertain future and sure that keeping the money is his one chance.

(Cusack is well cast in the role of Joey Coyle; he looks more Italian than Irish, but since the whole cast of characters is generic white ethnic, you stop noticing.)

Unfortunately for his dreams, he is too unworldly to do a very good job of keeping the secret. He passes out $100 bills to the homeless (who promptly ask for more), buys drinks for everyone and drinks a lot himself. He contacts the local mob (through the neighborhood bad guy, inevitably named Dino but played superbly by a little-known actor named Benicio del Toro) to launder half the money. He gets taken, and this is just the beginning of his slide into corruption. Soon he is carrying a gun, threatening people and going crazy with desperation. Even his attempts to hide the bills are stupid: The toilet overflows; he falls through the attic.

Then the movie veers into a crude caper and chase, all but abandoning the black comedy that has been so artfully set up. As long as the filmmakers stick to the specific, deeply textured reality of the neighborhood, the movie works; once they begin to broaden it, the flavor, and the poignancy, vanish.

"Money for Nothing" is rated R. It contains some nudity and profanity.