Review of Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) by Markb. — 10 Jan 2006

Never remake your hits, said legendary producer Samuel Goldwyn seven decades ago, only your flops. Despite occasional hiccups like Peter Jackson's brilliant reimagining of King Kong and (okay, okay) the esthetically bankrupt but hugely profitable Adam Sandler redo of The Longest Yard, this is advice that still rings true 90% of the time (although most studios have obviously turned a 100% deaf ear to it).

The original Fun with Dick and Jane, a fluffy but forgettable 1977 romp with George Segal and Jane Fonda as a successful professional couple who turn criminal after the bottom falls out, was no flop, but let's be honest: the only two things about it that people remember were a surprisingly amusing performance by Johnny Carson's old sidekick Ed McMahon and a shot of Fonda on the toilet, so it's fair game, I guess.

This remake is actually heavier on the social commentary than the original, with lots of broadsides aimed at everything from WorldCom to Wal-Mart (and if you're wondering why it's set in 2000 rather than 2005, you won't find out until literally the last few seconds before the closing credits).

When corporate up-and-comer Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) is made the patsy in a major scandal, he resorts to unorthodox measures with reluctant but intrigued wife Jane (Tea Leoni) in tow...leading to a good many economic-desperation gags that look like the punchlines that Barbara Ehrenstein somehow left out of her bestseller Nickel and Dimed.

This version deemphasizes D&J's attempts to rob convenience stores and the like, a wise move that actually strengthens the satire, since the only real victims of these crimes are often the hapless, low-paid clerks, who if they aren't shot are sometimes fired for not making like Steven Seagal on the criminals' butts.

And the best running gag comes early on, before the anvil drops on the Harpers' super-affluent lifestyle, when we discover that their little boy has, by dint of spending far more time with the maid than with his workaholic parents, has become unofficially Hispanic.

Unfortunately, most of this film is uneven at best, with a spaghetti-on-the-wall approach to comedy that reflects itself most obviously in Carrey's between-Oscar-attempts performance, a throwback to his Ace Ventura days: when in doubt, keep the camera running and just let him make silly faces at it.

The continually underrated Leoni is actually a lot more amusing: her reactions are really funny and delightful as she goes along with Carrey's wild schemes with a mixture of spousal devotion, bemusement and fascination.

Alec Baldwin as Carrey's boss, who's played similar roles in Elizabethtown and Along Came Polly, is beginning to define unctuous corporate slime in much the same way Conrad Veidt used to define Nazis in 1940s movies.

Baldwin's behavior, and the film's inevitable wish-fulfillment fantasy of his comeuppance is undoubtedly what will make Fun With Dick and Jane a populist hit: since we're obviously never going to see news footage of Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andy Fastow being persuaded to play drop-the-Lifebuoy in the prison showers with several six-foot-three, 250-lb.

dudes who can benchpress cattle and have lots of tattoos, many viewers will find this the next best thing.