Milk Money

At its most innocent, the title Milk Money (Paramount, PG-13) refers to the loose change and hoarded dollar bills that Frank (Michael Patrick Carter) and his two prepubescent suburban buddies pool to come up with the hundred bucks they have heard is the fee required to see a lady get naked in the big city. At its smuttiest, the title alludes to women’s breasts. You know: hooters. Heh-heh.

Everything else is commentary in this vile bit of curiously puritan nudge- nudge, wink-winkery about a hooker called V (Melanie Griffith) who, after taking the kids’ money to give them their eyeful, is set up by good-hearted Frank to meet his widowed father (Ed Harris) because the kid thinks V would make a great substitute Mom. By the time the two get together — and, of course, they do — Griffith trades in the hookerwear for a looser dress that shows only a little cleavage. Which pretty much typifies this curdled production. Smuttiness is made coy; innocence is made dirty; boyhood sexuality is made into a cartoon. And the subject of prostitution-even in romanticized Pretty Woman mode-is giggled and winked away, because Milk Money doesn’t even have the walnuts (heh-heh) to call a trick a trick. D-