James Brolin is a hunk.

Today I watched Blood Money, a very uniquely named film from 1996 that doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Directed by John Shepphird, try spelling that name five times fast, who you may recall from his most famous film; I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. Blood Money according to IMDB was one of seven films foreclosed on by the Screen Actors Guild due to non-payment of wages and residuals. Written by Steve Jankowski who now does novels, Blood Money has an interesting cast.

And by interesting cast I mean it has James Brolin as Lt. Kincaid. Blood Money stars Dean Tarrolly as Stuart, a simple banker man who finds his life twist turned upside down when a familiar figure from his past reappears. Stuart is at the mercy of Lester Grisam (Sonny Carl Davis) who reveals that Stuart used to be a criminal and got a new life after squealing on Grisam and avoiding jail. Grisam along with Dexter (Bentley Mitchum) and Sabbit (Tony Pierce) kidnap Stuart’s fiancé Kelly Ryan (Alison Moir) and her sister and give Stuart a simple task. He’s going to help pull off a bank heist.

Maybe the biggest surprise among the cast is Mark Ruffalo who has a very small role in the first 30 seconds of the movie as Grisam’s lawyer. Billy Drago is here as Agent Pierce. Half of the movie is Stuart helping out Grisam while they put their plan into action and the other half follows the police as they track down Grisam and are pretty sure that Stuart may be helping him given he’s an old accomplice. The third half is about the two women poorly attempting and failing to escape their captors.

To the best of my understanding this was a made for TV movie released in 1996.

Blood Money is a neat little noir crime film with a lot of twists and turns. The acting for the most part is exactly what you’d expect out of a made for TV 90s flick, a little underacted and wooden in spots. A lot of the actors didn’t exactly go on to have fantastic careers, nor did the writers. I’m actually going to read Steve Jankowski’s book Below the Line and probably talk about that some day. The film itself is a slow burn, which is how I say a lot of the audience will probably find it boring.

It does feel like a piece out of time. A 1996 film that should have been made in the mid to late 80s. Something Charles Bronson would be heavily featured in if it wasn’t played so straight. There’s a smattering of action and people getting shot and killed, and honestly it tickled my giggle stick. Also Sabbit looks like Seth Green’s older brother.

Should you watch it? Why not. It’s free on Tubi and free on YouTube. I’ll link it right here.