Skippable story of a skip tracer

On today's edition of "Smart Women, Stupid Choices" - Katherine Heigl! She left a halfway decent medical soap opera for a string of increasingly mediocre, decreasingly romantic "comedies" pairing her with increasingly bland leading men.

She may have thought she'd landed a plum (ahem) when she secured the rights to Janet Evanovich's Jersey bounty-hunter heroine, Stephanie Plum. But One for the Money, which Heigl also produced, is a malnourished exercise in star vanity, a film built around an actress so insecure she surrounds herself with nonthreatening no-name actors who make no impression at all.

Not to pick on TV actor Jason O'Mara, playing the cop and ex-beau that newbie bounty hunter Stephanie dogs in the film, but . . . who? She's gone from costarring with Gerard Butler and Josh Duhamel and Ashton Kutcher to O'Mara, who is competent and easy on the eyes. But charisma? Chemistry? Nada.

Heigl traded down to TV and Last Song sob sister Julie Anne Robinson for a director, then let her pack Stephanie's world with the blandest supporting cast ever. That makes for the most colorless movie this side of Oscar favorite The Artist.

Stephanie has lost her job selling lingerie at the Newark Macy's and just lost her car to the repo guys. She needs cash, or something, at least, to share with her dull, stereotypical blue-collar family. Loony granny (Debbie Reynolds, not her finest hour) is the only one who understands.

"Good judgment is for sissies!"

So the hot lingerie saleswoman hits up a relative (Patrick Fischler) for a piece of his bail-bond business, tracing folks who miss their court appearances and cost the bondsman money. She needs a big score, so she tackles killer cop Joe Morelli (O'Mara) - a guy she has history with - whose bond was pretty steep. Trenton's a small town, and Jersey girls and Jersey boys swim in a tiny pond.

The skip-tracer movie skips back and forth as Stephanie stumbles into asking questions about Joe's case, befriending hookers, calling in old favors from cops she grew up with, and the like. There's a menacing mixed martial-arts star, a best friend she meets only by phone, a few glorified cameos (Reynolds, John Leguizamo, Fisher Stevens), and a lot of blander-than-bland narration.

Heigl could be commended for giving lesser lights in the acting universe their shot, for entrusting this down-market heroine to female screenwriters and a female director. But when you're given a big break, you need to deliver.

And there is Heigl, the center of it all, wisely choosing a character, stupidly thinking that an array of skin-tight jeans and a couple of scenes showing a lot of skin make One for the Money worth our money.

One for the Money * (out of four stars)

Directed by Julie Anne Robinson. With Katherine Heigl, Jason O'Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, and Debbie Reynolds. Distributed by Lionsgate.

Running time: 1 hour, 29 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (violence, sexual references, profanity, some drug material, and partial nudity).

Playing at: area theaters