90 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette
Director
Keva Rosenfeld
Cast Includes: Linda Hunt, Brendan Fraser
Elisabeth Shue, Steve Buscemi
Christopher Lloyd, Spalding Gray
David Rasche, George Morfogen
Concetta Tomei, Gladys Knight
William H. Macy, Diane Baker
Matt Frewer, Nina Siemaszko
Kamal Holloway,

Review:
Intriguing concept—a $20 bill passes from hand to hand, and is briefly in the possession of a diverse group of people—but the result is slight and forgettable. Chief point of interest: the film is based on an unsold script written by Endre Bohem in 1935; this updated version was scripted by his son Leslie.

Twenty Bucks
US (1993): Drama
Roger Ebert Review: 3.0 stars out of 4
90 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette
Cast & Credits
Linda Hunt Angeline Christopher Lloyd -Jimmy
Steve Buscemi - Frank
Elisabeth Shue - Emily Adams
Brendan Fraser - Sam
Gladys Knight - Mrs. McCormac
Melora Walters - Stripper
Spalding Gray - Priest
Directed by Keva Rosenfeld and produced by Karen Murphy. Screenplay by Leslie Bohem and Endre Bohem.

Review:
Most movies begin at their beginnings and march sternly toward their ends, convinced that the universe makes sense, and that effect follows cause. Once in a long while a film will try to subvert that certainty. Buñuel's THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY (1974) told one story for a while, and then peeled off to follow another set of characters, and then another. Richard Linklater's SLACKER (1991) did the same thing, bouncing from one person to the next on a kind of guided tour of Austin, Texas.

And now here is the beguiling TWENTY BUCKS, which follows a twenty-dollar bill as it slips from one hand to another. There's no deep point to be made; the device is simply an excuse to tell half a dozen short stories. But the very lightness of the premise gives the film a kind of freedom. We glimpse revealing moments in lives, instead of following them to one of those manufactured movie conclusions that pretends everything has been settled.
The bill originally finds its way into the hands of a street person (Linda Hunt), who is sure it will win her the lottery. Along the way it becomes a wedding gift, given to the groom (Brendan Fraser) by his wealthy future father-in-law (George Morfogen), as a warning that riches will not fall from trees. Then it finds its way into the garter belt of a stripper (Melora Walters) at the groom's bachelor party, and from there it indirectly leads to the best of the film's vignettes.
That's the one involving Christopher Lloyd (the mad inventor in the BACK TO THE FUTURE movies) and Steve Buscemi, who run into each other by chance. Lloyd asks Buscemi if he'll help him out with a few jobs he had in mind. He wants to pull some stickups. Buscemi thinks he's crazy, but isn't reluctant to go along, and then the caper takes on a crazy logic of its own.
Sometimes an actor will walk into a movie for fifteen minutes or so, and show you such strength that you look at him altogether differently. That's what Lloyd does here (Buscemi has done it too, in movies like RESERVOIR DOGS and MYSTERY TRAIN). He doesn't play the holdup man as a bad guy, but as a well-spoken, intelligent, logical, firm-minded character who has a chilling reserve. By the time his segment arrives at its unexpected conclusion, I was so absorbed, I'd basically forgotten about the twenty bucks and the rest of the movie.
But the rest is good, too, including a vignette starring Elisabeth Shue as a would-be writer who keeps getting put down. The story of Endre Bohem's original screenplay is almost as problematic as the fate of the twenty-dollar bill. He wrote this story in 1935. It gathered dust for more than half a century before he handed it to his son, Leslie Bohem, who read it, liked it, did a rewrite, and saw it into production. Some of the language and situations (like the stripper at the bachelor party) were no doubt not in the original version, but the spirit seems to come through unchanged: A wonderment at the unpredictable world we live in, and the way chance plays a role in our lives, even when we'd like to think we're calling the shots.

Twenty Bucks
US (1993): Drama
CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide Review: 2.5 stars out of 5

90 min, Rated R, Color, Available on videocassette
A film that bases its narrative on the journey of a $20 bill as it moves from wallet to cash register and back again, TWENTY BUCKS flows as easily as money circulates. Although the script seems contrived at moments, strong performances and slick direction make this an engaging, episodic diversion.
Synopsis
Cash exchange. A woman takes a crisp $20 bill from an Automated Teller Machine and promptly drops it. Angeline (Linda Hunt), a homeless woman, finds it and, after declaring her find a matter of fate, predicts that the serial numbers on the bill will win her the lottery. The bill is promptly snatched from her hand by a skateboard bandit who spends the money at a bakery. Given in change for the purchase of a wedding cake, the sawbuck appears at a rehearsal dinner, where the father of the bride presents it to the groom, Sam (Brendan Fraser), as a symbolic wedding present. At his bachelor party later that night, Fraser tips a stripper with the bill, just before his fiancée walks in and asks for the money so they can have it framed. It's in the mail. The stripper spends her tip at a store that sells fragrant oils. As the shopkeeper writes a letter to her grandson from a diner counter, Frank (Steve Buscemi) chats up Emily (Elisabeth Shue), a waitress with literary aspirations, whom he cons out of ten dollars. Jimmy (Christopher Lloyd), who watched the scam, approaches Buscemi and suggests they work as a team. While they talk, the shopkeeper posts her letter, with the twenty bucks inside it, in a mailbox beside Buscemi's car.
Payment to a dead man. The shopkeeper's teenage grandson gets the money and decides to spend it on two bottles of wine. He goes to a liquor store and gives the bill to Lloyd—who's about to pull a robbery—asking him to make the purchase. The robbery is botched, but Lloyd still delivers the wine. The crooks get away, but Buscemi spots the $20 in Lloyd's pocket and starts getting hostile. Lloyd gives Buscemi the bill and then shoots him.
The bucks stop here. The bill is held as evidence in the shooting, but gets back into circulation after being included in a box of recovered stolen goods. It changes hands again, winding up in the wallet of Shue's father. The elderly man, who recently raged at his daughter's writing ambitions, drops dead at a bingo game. Shue finds the bill in his wallet, next to a clipping of a short story he wrote as a young man. After a bizarre funeral service, she decides to go to Europe. While Shue's brother is seeing her off at the airport, Fraser meets the father of his ex-fiancée at a table nearby. Shue tears up the much-traveled bill and then bumps into Fraser. As they board the plane together, Hunt gathers up the fragments of the shredded bill. Taping them together, she hears the winning number of the lottery announced. They are the numbers she never played. She curses the torn bill and exchanges it for a fresh one. The serial numbers feel lucky. Critique
Absurdist ingenuity. TWENTY BUCKS takes a simple idea and pushes it to ingeniously entertaining lengths. Since the film never dwells on any one character for long, even the bleakest of the vignettes is colored by a lighthearted, absurdist tone. At times, the screenplay really crackles—especially when the scuzzy Buscemi and refined Lloyd pair up. Elisabeth Shue, eyes nervously darting, also gives a strong performance as the would-be writer. Bonuses include Gladys Knight and Spalding Gray, who plays a minister, in fine cameos.
Two generations in the making. The provenance of the script for TWENTY BUCKS is as intriguing as any twist in the narrative. It was written in 1935 by Endre Bohem, a writer who later turned producer (ALIAS NICK BEAL, TV's "Rawhide"), then rewritten and brought to the screen by his son Leslie (formerly half of the quirky pop duo Sparks) over a ten-year period beginning in 1983. Directed by documentarian Keva Rosenfeld (ALL-AMERICAN HIGH), the final result cost less than $6 million and took the critics' prize at the Deauville film festival.
(Nudity, profanity, violence.)