Fun with Dick and Jane

Director: Dean Parisot
Starring: Jim Carrey, Téa Leoni, Alec Baldwin
Running time: 90 mins
Certificate: 12A

When Dick Harper (Carrey) is given a massive promotion at work, he and his wife Jane (Leoni) decide that his new income will be enough for the couple and she quits her job. However, Dick has barely started work in his new position before he becomes an inadvertent scapegoat embroiled in an Enron-style scandal concerning his company which then tanks. Now both unemployed, Dick and Jane struggle to find new work and turn to a life of crime in hope of recovering their previous luxurious lifestyle and getting their own back on the fat cat (Baldwin) who triggered their predicament.

A remake of the more caustic 1977 George Segal and Jane Fonda original with renewed relevance in terms of its target, the movie takes some accurate shots at corporate brutality and greed with wit and sarcasm. Jim Carrey is again being the slapstick hero of the The Mask and Ace Ventura days, although he is also given the odd moment to flex his more ‘serious’ acting muscles. It truly is a joy to see him being his silly self, although funny as the director using this side of the actor may be, it’s questionable as to whether it really benefits the film as a whole – the fact that it descends readily into slapstick stops the movie’s satirical flow to an extent. Leoni’s performance is also very entertaining, the pair striking up a great chemistry.

The hopping around between satire and slapstick does little for the plot – you’d never think at the beginning of the film that it would become the crime caper it eventually ends up, which is a longer time coming than the trailers would have you believe. Rather, time is spent showing us how bad their predicament is, yet it’s not made easy to sympathise with them simply because their life of unemployment seems to be so funny.

All in all, a fair amount of fun can be had with Jim and Téa, together serving up an excellent comedic double-act in parts. However, the humour’s focus on the farcical takes away what could have been a more vicious bite.