Directed by: Richard Benjamin
Starring: Tom Hanks, Shelley Long, Alexander Gudonov, Philip Bosco, Jake Steinfeld, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Mantegna
Walter and Anna are a couple in love as The Money Pit begins. Life is pretty good, until they are thrown out of Anna's ex-husband's posh apartment and have no place to go. They find a large country home the seller wants to close on in a week and is almost giving away, and Walter and Anna expect to live comfortably in their quiet home. They're wrong. Walter (Hanks) and Anna (Long) expected to make minor repairs to the house, but soon the stairs collapse, the front door falls off, the water stops running, the electricity fizzles out, and the bathtub falls through the floor. They soon spend an untold fortune on renovating the home, depending on sleazy contractors whose workers look like denizens of the circus that just came to town.
Most of the gags in The Money Pit are repetitive. Something breaks, crumbles, falls, cracks, or is demolished while Walter and Anna look on in bewilderment. It turns out they were the suckers and the rest of the movie has the mostly likable couple sink further into despair and debt trying to make a go of this lemon. I have some affection for it, mostly because I just plain felt sorry for these poor schnooks who only wanted to find a home and build their lives together.
Hanks and Long have likability to spare, and there are supporting performances which worked despite the characters being underwritten. Philip Bosco is a kindly contractor, the only one who seems to have any scruples at all, and Joe Mantegna infuses his corrupt contractor with some oily charm that makes us wish we saw more of him. Alexander Gudonov shines as Anna's snotty orchestra conductor ex who doesn't make it a secret that he wants Anna back...at least for one night.
Some of the sight gags are amusing, but nothing in The Money Pit rises to the level of gut-busting laughter. It moves along, the house falls apart, is fixed again, and everyone lives happily ever after. The Money Pit doesn't aspire to be more than what it is, and in some ways that's just fine.
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