Review of The Money Pit, directed by Richard Benjamin

I don’t know how I really ended up watching The Money Pit, but somehow it was in front of me on Netflix and I was going to watch it that day instead of doing other work that I really should be doing at that time. This is a reoccurring theme with me and this blog: you’ll find the more you keep reading on my reviews and watch lists that many different things I end up consuming are on a whim.

There are always movies and television shows that are at the top of my list, but then I end up spontaneously seeing things while doom scrolling and then end up watching them.

All of this is to say that this is how I ended up watching The Money Pit. My other shameful confession of the day is I had never seen a movie with Tom Hanks with in it before, so this was a pretty odd way to start off the legacy of his movies for me.

I didn’t think this was the best film for some pretty obvious reasons, but all in all it wasn’t something I wasn’t looking to invest into at the time.

I’ve rambled enough! Let’s get into the review.

A New York City-based couple buys a house that’s falling apart.

So in this movie, the main characters are Walter and Anna. Walter is an attorney, while Anna is a musician. When Anna’s ex-husband comes home unexpectedly from Europe, he delivers some awful news for them: they have to vacate the premises, and they need to find a home in New York City on the spot.

This leads to Walter hearing through the grapevine that a mansion is on sale for a major discount, and they go off to meet the owner. She’s got an interesting story that seems kind of fake, but the couple goes for the house depsite this.

But almost immediately from the moment when they sign the papers, the house begins to fall apart. A series of events happens that could only occur in a comedic movie like this, making the purchase of the house completely a money pit because while the couple managed to score an incredible deal, it still was something that ended up screwing them over completely financially.

The fist step is to use the down payment for contractors, which then screws them over with the necessary permits to do just that.

They are told the work will only take two weeks, but deep down we all know this isn’t true.Four months pass, and the couple is quickly running out of money to pay for the renovations.

Anna tries to take matters into their own hands, and when she goes to her ex-husband, she ends up getting drunk with him and wakes up in the same bed as this man.

She denies it to Walter, but they both know she did it and cheated on him in the end.

Somehow, despite these two vowing to break up and sell the house once they’re done the renovations, Walter realizes he still loves her and decides to make amends with Anna.

They finish up repairing the house and put that headache off to the side, and then the scenes cut to the woman who sold them the house. As it turns out, she’s a con artist and going after Walter’s dad, and he very well might believe it.

Overall Thoughts

As I said before, this is a movie you really can’t think too hard about. I was kind of over it by the time we got to the end, so if it were any longer, I think that it wouldn’t have worked out as much in my head. T

here’s simply too many moments that had me wanting to quit the film, and while it was entertaining overall, I found that it was asking for too much suspension of disbelief that I didn’t want to provide as a viewer.

So come into this one with low expectations I’d say, then it might end well. It’s a very eighties movie though, I will say.

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