SYNOPSIS
In Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment’s holiday comedy Fun With Dick and Jane starring Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni, Dick Harper’s (Carrey) years of hard work finally pay off when he is promoted to vice president at Globodyne, a worldwide leader in the consolidation of media properties.
But after exactly one day in his new job, Globodyne is destroyed by an Enron-like calamity -- and he is left holding the bag.
Dick’s sudden reversal of fortune has left him little time to set money aside for a rainy day. Now it’s raining buckets as Dick and his loving wife Jane (Leoni), watch in horror as their deluxe suburban home, their luxury cars and their statusconscious friends quickly vanish into thin air.
After playing by the rules and working single-mindedly to build a comfortable life for his family, Dick is utterly unprepared to give up the American dream. Taking a lesson from his corrupt employer, however, Dick hits on a brilliant idea: If stealing was good enough for his boss, then it’s good enough for him.
Using his newfound skills, he and Jane exact hilarious revenge and teach big business a lesson.
Fun With Dick and Jane is a simple tale of two people who lose their minds while trying to hold on to the elusive American dream.
Life has never been better for Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) and his loving wife, Jane Jane (Téa Leoni) -- a sure sign that things can only get worse.
Dick has waited patiently for almost 15 years to become a vice president at Globodyne. That day finally arrives. His boss, Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin), finally gives him his promotion and his wife Jane (Téa Leoni) finally gets to quit her job at a travel agency.
But the celebration is short-lived. Globodyne and McCallister become embroiled in a giant corporate scandal. The company goes belly-up and Dick is left holding the bag, while his boss takes advantage of his solid gold parachute. For a time, he waits in vain for a rival company to snap him up. Faced with a mountain of debt and the threat of repossession, Dick tries to find a job, any job. The best position that’s open is as a “greeter” at the local giant box store. Jane decides to go back to work as well. She bluffs her way into a gig as a Tae Bo instructor and then tries to earn some money as a guinea pig for a new Botox-like substance.
But they are clearly not cut out for these new jobs and, besides, they don’t make much of a dent in their financial situation. So, one by one, they are forced to sell off their dream possessions, including their cherished plasma television.
At wit’s end, Dick snaps, and in an effort to reclaim at least a part of his former life, steals chunks of sod from the neighbors’ lawns to replenish his own balding backyard. Before long, he and Jane have embarked on a series of nighttime robberies, leaving their six-year-old son Billy in the care of their faithful housekeeper Blanca.
For a time, they are excited and invigorated by their new lives as a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde.
But they soon realize that there is stealing and there is stealing. And they discover that the way back to their lives -- and their sanity -- is to right the initial wrong done to Dick and his co-workers by their unscrupulous boss at Globodyne.
It’s payback time.
Review by
PETER "PapaBear" CRUIKSHANK
“Sometimes, the best cure is a Clean Conscious”. A very insightful comment by Dick Harper (played by Jim Carrey) that helps one to understand the Message in the Movie. Fun with Dick and Jane is a remake of 1977 movie, by the same name, that starred George Segal and Jane Fonda. There has been a flood of movies remaking hits, primarily from the 70s, and actually the mid-70s (e.g. Longest Yard, Bad News Bears). Does that say something about that time in history? Hmmmm, don’t know, but an interesting topic that maybe we should visit sometime.
As with many of this year’s remakes, this one was an excellent update to a strange, yet somehow understandable story-line. The Director was able to take this story, set in the 70s, and update it so it felt familiar in the 21st century. This would be even funnier if bad fortunes weren’t true life for many people. But making a farce out of the failure of large corporations and the sudden change in fortune for many people is maybe just what a lot of people need to see. Especially when the management of the corporation is made out to be such vile villains – makes it seem normal.
Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni (Jane) give great performances as the married couple who are on top of the world, living the American Dream, when they are stuck with the American Reality. Alec Baldwin, as Jack McCallister the CEO of the Globodyne (an Enron-like company), comes across as the perfect bad guy. Together they provide a great cast for this film.
Whereas the original 1970s version of the film was also billed as a comedy, this new version was funnier (duh – Carrey) and while still attempting to provide a social commentary on big business, the timing is a bit difference. We have become used to the giant corporations toying with the life of it’s employees and stockholders; and have become almost numb to the daily slashing and cutting. But I guess that is part of the difference between the 1970s and the 21st century – the movie, Texas Chainsaw Murders (1974), was a shocker back then also. Almost sad that we are little affected by either.
Social commentary aside, I really enjoyed this film. It is hard to not laugh at Carrey when he is on a role and really trying to be funny (which he was in this flick). And I have loved Leoni every since she starred in Spanglish with Adam Sandler. Your side will definitely be a hurting at the end of this movie.
Some people will be concerned that the movie is about a couple who end up in a life of crime and wonder how I can promote such a story. Well, if you look at it on the surface, than you would probably be right. However, if you look at the Message in the Movie, you come away with a whole different view of what takes place.
First, we need to look at what happens to this couple. Just about everything that can happen to really mess their lives up. You can almost see Job going through the same thing and saying to himself – why me? But even with everything that happens to Dick and Jane. They have each other. At first there was some blame by Jane, but as things got worse, they got closer. No matter what the world through at them, they got through it – and I believe it was because they had each other.
And, I think everything that happened to them was necessary. I have had a lot of hard times in my life. I used to ask why God did these things to me. There came a point where someone told me that it wasn’t God doing anything to me. It was people doing stuff to me (and some might say Satan), and in many cases, I was doing it to myself. But that God was always there with me – not necessarily making my life easy or making everything go away – but giving me the strength to get through it. At first I couldn’t understand this. It made no sense. Why would God let me go through everything I would go through? And then I read a verse in the bible where it said that all things were for God’s plan and that God let me experience many things so that I would be prepared to deal with things that much harder.
This turned out to be true for me and I think it was true for Dick and Jane. All the hard times that they went through made them learn how to be crooks. Yes, that is not good. However, if they had not learned the skills necessary to perform their thefts, and more importantly the bravado to carry out the thefts, they would never had been able to carry out their final mission and change the lives of thousands of their pervious co-workers. I can not imagine Dick and Jane, prior to their life of crime, having the guts, timing, or flexibility to, when faced with challenge of helping out their co-workers (and subsequently themselves), find “the best cure…” and have a “clean conscious”.
All-in-all, I highly recommend this movie to everyone. A good time and well worth the price. Enjoy a funny flick this new year and check out Fun with Dick and Jane.
