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FUN
WITH DICK AND JANE 2005 (Dec 2005)
Director: Dean Parisot.
Writers: Judd
Apatow, Nicholas Stoller, Peter Tolan.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Téa
Leoni,
Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins, Jeff Garlin.
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Poffy Steal
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Not
Much Fun with Dick and Jane.
by
Jon Dunmore © 22 Jan 2006.
To say that Adam Sandler is turning into a mediocre actor
is a compliment of the highest order. To say the same thing
about Jim Carrey is a tragedy for American Cinema.
Not
exactly a "boring" movie - but FUN WITH DICK AND JANE does not possess enough substance to squeeze
out an entertaining review. Somebody wake me when this typing
is done…
An
upwardly-mobile family suddenly find themselves in a downwardly-spiraling
tailspin. Both Dick Harper (Carrey) and his wife Jane (the
simply stunning Téa Leoni) are out of work and so
down on their luck that they turn to crime to pay the bills
and retain their yuppie materialism.
We
don't need more than one hand to count the big
laughs in this remake of the 1977 film (which starred George
Segal and Jane Fonda). Veteran television director, Dean
Parisot, with writers Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller and
Peter Tolan, move the film at a breakneck pace, which leaves
no time to question the childish plot or examine the one-dimensionality
of the characters, coaxing about as many nervous titters
and strained giggles as your average TV comedy, with the actors constantly reaching
for gags that get away.
And
there lies the problem: this IS "your average TV comedy"
writ large and tedious. Key word: average. Mediocre. Nice.
Unexceptional. Okay. Beige. Vanilla. Very Un-Carrey.
To
this point in his career, Jim Carrey has not insulted us
with "average" in any of his diverse roles. Even
the seemingly mundane THE MAJESTIC saw him produce
some of his finest "straight" dramatic moments
on film. In DICK AND JANE he is floundering in a
script written for a lesser comedian - maybe someone mid-beige,
like his co-star from the devilishly wry THE CABLE GUY, Matthew Broderick, but not quite as American Ugly as a Rob
Schneider or a Tom Arnold.
Carrey's
talents are still potent, evidenced in snatches like the
Hendrix air-guitar-voicebox scene, and a scene where he
plays a puppet, while drunk (on half a beer), these scenes
only highlighting his lack of anything to do in the rest
of the movie. He even spoofs his own acting talents in a
scene where he reaches such a level of desperation that
tears well up in his eyes as he tries to exact reparations
directly from his CEO at gunpoint. Not one minute after
the intense moment, he is laughingly boasting to his wife,
"Did you see how I made my eyes water?"
There
are intimations that the recession hindering Dick
and Jane finding gainful employment is a George W. Bush
phenomenon. But the movie is not a Bush-bash - if you blink,
you miss the connection. There are grander issues at stake
here - snide contradictions about morality and the ethics
of crime.
For
one brief moment, Dick contemplates prostituting
Jane as a means to get by. Of course, in a PG-13 film, the female
is required to act outraged at this suggestion
- then she turns to burglary without a moment's hesitation!
Burglary, like prostitution, is illegal; like
prostitution, immoral, and like prostitution, demoralizing. Unlike prostitution (which is a misdemeanor), burglary is a felony. (If Dick actually pimped Jane, he would be a felon.) These two desperadoes are painted as Good Christians trying to feed their son and keep their house, yet the same "christians
in the audience who would frown on
prostitution, readily embrace burglary as a viable comedic
device. Yet, if Dick and Jane are on the route of immorality
- "immorality" as denoted by their society's strictures
- they might as well have turned to prostitution as
a means to an end, for with Jane being such a magma-hot
tamale, she could have easily clocked thousands of dollars
a day escorting high-class businessmen, thereby achieving
the goal of Quick Cash less illegally.
The
movie tells us - snidely, of course - that dressing as a
Blues Brother and armed robbing of a bank, or stealing a car and
driving it through a jewelry store window is less reprehensible
than selling your body. Yet a felony is a crime where harm is done to others and property (burglary); prostituting doesn't harm anyone, hence a misdemeanor. Both are immoral acts - as you yourselves have decreed. So why vilify one and laugh at the other? Prostitution is not "more" immoral than burglary. Once you've crossed the moral line, which authority do you consult for "level" of immorality?
Movie
also tells us that since the CEO was stealing money from
his corporation, it is okay to steal the money back from
him. Two wrongs DO make a right!
And
are we to applaud Dick and Jane for being so attuned to
each other's criminal proclivities? One would imagine that
if a married couple were thrown into destitution and one
partner were to suggest burglary as a way out, the other
partner (if they harbored a shred of decency) would protest
to the point of defection in the marriage - yet these two
are as ideologically bereft as each other, actually enjoying
themselves to the point of playing "dress-up"
with such outlandishly flamboyant costumes, we not only
question their pragmatism, we wonder at their apprehension
of morals at all.
In
this frenetic film, many other actors somehow also find
nothing to do: Alec Baldwin (as Dick's CEO), Richard Jenkins
(as Dick's supervisor-turned-bum), and Jeff Garlin (out
from under the protective skirts of Larry David, as an Office
Manager).
A
simple comedy for the simple-minded. See Dick? See Jane?
No. See Carrey, see Leoni - but in something else.
END
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FUN
WITH DICK AND JANE 2005 (Dec 2005)
Director: Dean Parisot.
Writers: Judd
Apatow, Nicholas Stoller, Peter Tolan.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Téa
Leoni,
Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins, Jeff Garlin.
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