Take the Money and Run [Tribeca Festival Review]

by Mike McGranaghan

Jens Haaning is a fascinating, frustrating individual. The opening moments of Take the Money and Run, which screened in the Spotlight Documentary section of the 2025 Tribeca Festival, tell us about the event that brought him infamy. A modern artist, Haaning borrowed about 500,000 kroner from a museum for a piece in which the bills would be positioned inside a frame. Instead, he kept the cash, gave them an empty frame, and called his work “Take the Money and Run.” This created a huge scandal in the art world, with some declaring him a genius and others branding him a thief.

Ole Juncker’s film follows Haaning in the days afterward. At first, the whole thing is like a game to him, even as the museum threatens legal action. He delights in, as he views it, maintaining the integrity of his piece by refusing to return the cash. Thanks in part to his bipolar disorder (or so the film implies) the artist goes on to make a series of erratic decisions, including purchasing an abandoned post office, that put him in deep debt. In a panic, he tries to orchestrate the sale of other works while also attempting to outwit the museum’s legal maneuvers.

Take the Money and Run is partially about the question of what does/does not constitute art. There’s certainly an artistic point being made through the work; then again, the guy made off with a load of cash that didn’t belong to him. On another level, it deals with how hard it is to thrive in the art world. Haaning acknowledges that he wanted to make a statement about how museums and galleries generate money hand over fist while the actual artists often scramble to get by. Using the example of this controversial work allows the viewer to probe their own ideas about the validity of what Haaning did.

All of this is made more gripping by the central figure’s mania. Being put in a squeeze brings stress that causes his behavior to grow increasingly erratic. This adds a level of drama because we witness him making his own situation exponentially worse. At one point, he tries to countersue the museum for selling a picture of the empty frame, illogically coming to the determination that they’ve made a fortune doing so. Friends and his romantic companion worry about the toll the situation takes on him, especially as he steadfastly refuses to make obvious concessions that would lighten his load.

With its wild twists and turns, Take the Money and Run is provocative and mesmerizing, both as a study of art and as a portrait of an artist. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Haaning is a genius and a thief. That contrast powers the documentary, making it a movie that will have you discussing and debating for a long time.

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