There’s something deeply worrying about Katherine Heigl’s particular brand of heroine. Old-fashioned wank-fodder is easy to understand; it’s just mouths, dialogue and pants in decreasing order of size. Girls with plenty of hair, a couple of pert opinions to keep ’em, you know, relevant or whatever, and a quiet but ever-present undertone of sexual curiosity about their own gender. Simple times! Normal humans were free to comfortably lambast these cardboard slut-outs, knowing that at least there would always be actresses more interested in telling a story than in wearing very small shorts. Stories of real women, interesting characters, characters like Stephanie Plum in One For The Money – she’s a bounty hunter, so, you know, this is all progressive and shit, right? Ha.

So, Stephanie Plum (Heigl) used to be a lingerie saleswoman. Why? Who knows. Still, it gives everyone in the audience one glittering opportunity to imagine Katherine Heigl surrounded by lingerie, so that’s the main thing. And when I say one opportunity, I mean apart from all of the shots of her in the shower for some reason, or the bits where she’s suddenly in a bra, or naked. Apart from those bits. Anyway, she’s a lingerie saleswoman who decides to become a bounty hunter! Why would she decide that? Why would anyone ever decide that? Because of some dialogue! Also, she was a lingerie saleswoman , which means they can do a joke about that being basically the same as a bounty hunter somehow. Everyone laughs, hahaha, ahahaha. And then she buys a gun. You know, the thing that you kill people with? Remember the lingerie joke, though? Hahaha. Anyway, because this is a Katherine Heigl film, she can’t just track any old bloke, oh no, she’s tracking a bloke who used to bone her! It’s not Gerard Butler, because he learnt his lesson during The Ugly Truth. But it’s that character again (misogynistic arse-toad), only this time, Katherine Heigl ran him over with her car earlier! Hahaha, haha, like the lingerie, remember!

So because he stopped putting it in her, she ran him over with a car – an act that is probably meant to say something about her personality, something that isn’t Katherine Heigl Runs People Over With Her Car. If it helps, she’s also got curly hair, and the two things are probably linked. In fact, I know they are, because at one point Not Gerard Butler says the line “I like your hair. It really suits your personality.” This guy is wanted for murder, that’s murder, for all you lingerie fans out there, and it’s apparently up to Katherine Heigl to learn about some criminal underworld, solve a case full of huge murders, shoot some bad guys and get worried about her new prostitute friends who keep getting beaten up. But don’t worry too much about deaths and drugs and abuse and murder and stuff – her ex keeps calling her ‘cupcake’! How dare he, the bad thing! Dammit, if he wasn’t so god-damn cute all the time it would be a dang sight easier to try and aquit him of murder, but what’s a girl to do when he keeps telling her how nice her ass is? Luckily she has an actual big other man (PHEW!) on hand to teach her how to be… whatever it is she’s supposed to be in this film, and he teaches her how to shoot a gun! They call each-other by their last names, so that shows how they see each-other as equals. And sure there’s a bit where she’s tied to her own shower, naked, and she needs his help because he’s strong and a real person and she’s just a spunky lingerie saleswoman turned gun-fellator, and she calls him and says “I’m naked” and he says “I’ll be right there”, BUT DAMMIT THAT’S WHAT EQUALS DO.

Jesus this is a terrible film. Not only is it entirely free from dramatic tension, interesting characters, a believable narrative or any comical moments whatsoever, it’s also horribly, horribly mis-judged in terms of genre. Repeat after us, Julie Anne Robinson, a story that involves dead bodies stored in barrels and jokes about how hot Katherine Heigl’s ass is do not go hand in ass. If you’re trying to create a believable crime-drama, stop having all of your supposedly terrifying murderer characters tell Katherine Heigl literally everything they know about all the murders they’ve ever done, purely because there’s no other way to get her shit character access to this information.

Championing the most sinister form of pseudo-feminism raging in Hollywood today – that of The Bolshy But Damn Beautiful Woman In A Man’s World, all it does is draw lines firmly between The Man’s Way of getting things done (being intelligent, learning things, saying proper words to like-minded people) and The Woman’s Way (taking your top off and surprising The Man by being able to do anything at all). I hate you, Stephanie Plum. Probably enough to run you over with my car, because that’s what us women do, right, us women with our crazy emotions? Perhaps I should just be grateful that she’s able to drive at all, even if her every action is governed by her spurned womb. For God’s sake, just watch Leon instead. 12 year old assassin Natalie Portman does more for gender-equality in that than Katherine Heigl does in her entire, ovary-drenched output. All female-crew or not, One For The Money is soulless, boring, chauvinistic nonsense. And if you think otherwise, you’re stupid. As stupid as a woman – and I’ll bet your tits aren’t even as nice.