Watching Cash was a strange blend of awkward and exciting, as a unique crime spree film the likes of which I’d never seen before played out in front of me. And as such, I have to distill the experience down to the most basic elements. But that’s my job and I do it happily.

Cash follows a young couple who’s just had an incredible stroke of luck–they’ve found a suitcase containing just over six hundred thousand bucks in pure untraceable cash. And as they go around picking up the stuff they’ve always wanted, they’re doing a pretty fair job of burning through that cash. But as is generally the case with suitcases full of cash, it has come from illicit acts, and the folks behind said illicit acts want to get that cash back…including the cash that’s already been spent. Not surprisingly, the young couple will not take this well, and by the end, well…no spoilers.

Cash is, as I’ve said, deeply unique in the lengths the crooks will go to recover their money from the young couple.  Seriously, this is downright creepy.  The criminal takes the couple to their bank to negotiate a home-equity loan on their behalf, and on positively usurious terms. They even go on a crime spree lasting several days and holding up several convenience stores. It’s actually difficult to watch at some points.

But at the same time, it’s also largely unlike anything we’ve seen before, because it goes to such incredible lengths.  Cash is going to go farther than we’ve ever seen an action movie go, at least as far as I can remember, and I’ve seen a lot of action movies in my time.

And Cash also represents a strange movement in which some pretty big name actors–Sean Bean of the Lord of the Rings series (he was Boromir, if you need the reference) and Chris Hemsworth of Home and Away (Kim Hyde) are here–show up in direct to video movies.

But still, between the solid performances of the cast and the unique nature of the script, about the only thing keeping this from being a really incredible movie is the sheer awkwardness of the over the top stuff we’re looking at. It goes a little too far, and while this makes it terribly unique, it also makes it really, really awkward.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale hands over an eight out of ten to this unique action film that’s got a lot to offer, but goes just a little bit too far in the pursuit of same.