The 1977 George Segal-Jane Fonda comedy was no great shakes to begin with. And the latest version of Fun With Dick and Jane is disappointingly mediocre in its own right.
The plot — a far cry from the children's Dick and Jane series — concerns an affluent suburban couple who fall on hard times when they lose their jobs, and they turn to a life of crime.
When the film begins, all is well. Dick (Jim Carrey) works for an international company called Globodyne, and wife Jane (Tea Leoni) is a high-powered, if beleaguered, travel agent. Dick is about to be promoted to vice president, so he encourages Jane to quit her job.
But after an Enron-like scandal, Dick is on the street, and since she took her husband's advice so is Jane.
After trying their hands at several jobs — Jane as a gym instructor, Dick as a Kmart-like clerk — with disastrous results, the couple find themselves on the way to ruin, with their house and everything they own repossessed.
In desperation, Dick, declaring that they played by the rules but “got screwed,” turns to crime. Jane is skeptical, but goes along for a lark, not thinking he is really serious. Before long, they embark on a series of petty robberies (the first few comically bungled, of course), and finally go for the big time: banks.
All of this is conceived as a social satire, and some of the jibes — particularly those having to do with the state of today's economy — work. Dick finding himself in a veritable stampede for one available job at a corporation is a particularly sharp sequence.
But once Dick and Jane begin their life of crime the moral focus goes squishy, and the conceit of having the robberies become an aphrodisiac for the couple's stagnant sex life is distasteful. Among other lame gags that quickly wear thin is having their young son speaking Spanish because he spends more time with his Latino nanny than his parents.
The casualness with which they take to crime is unconvincing from a dramatic, as much as a moral, standpoint.
The promising start showing Carrey in the corporate world of Globodyne turns sour and unfunny, despite the likable and accomplished stars. There's good work, too, from Alec Baldwin as Globodyne's corrupt head, Richard Jenkins as another Globodyne honcho, and Jeff (Curb Your Enthusiasm) Garlin as an executive to whom Dick applies for a job. The cast has the ability to pull this story off, but the Judd Apatow-Nicholas Stoller script lets them down.
Stealing is wrong (to state the obvious), but the basic premise of the story is presented as social satire on corporate greed, today's economy, the desperate pursuit of the American dream, and so on, and justice is served by the end.
At the end of the day, there's not much fun to be had with this duo. “See Spot Run” anyone?
The film has some rough and crude language and profanity, brief bedroom encounters between husband and wife, some crude humor and innuendo, and mild irreverence. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
(This review appears courtesy of US Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting.)