Kathmandu:

Fun with Dick and Jane successfully keeps pace with Jim Carrey’s elastic face changes in a caper comedy that will be relevant to anyone whose company has been stolen while they are working in it. Fast and furious, this is another take on the American Nightmare with allusions so American as to be indecipherable. Slick direction and great acting make ‘Fun’, fun. Once. Just about.

In a article in Premiere the director Dean Parisot is heard saying, “I was one of those people who always said, ‘I don’t ever want to make a remake’.” But this 1977 comedy about down-on-their-luck marrieds who turn to robbing banks “had not been hugely popular, and I thought it could be improved on”. Indeed, adds the director, “the themes are more relevant now”. The new couple turns criminal after Dick loses his job in an Enron-like scandal (the movie’s set in 2000, “the end of that naive period of growth and prosperity,” says Parisot). Despite the social relevance, it’s “really a love story,” adds the director.

Tea Leoni says she found the Bonnie-and-Clyde–like spree “an incredible sexual turn-on”, though she worried that her colleagues might think she’s “a pervert”. Luckily, they agreed with her. “When they start robbing, it’s like their relationship got great and exciting again,” says Parisot. “It’s almost like sex.”

Writes critic Jeff Shannon, “Remakes are always a gamble, so it’s a pleasant surprise that Fun with Dick and Jane pays off with unexpected dividends. It’s as entertaining as the 1977 original starring George Segal and Jane Fonda, and the teaming of Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni makes this a safe bet for comedy fans, in spite of a slapstick screenplay. Rather than attempt a darkly comedic send-up of the Enron scandal that left thousands of stockholders in financial ruin, director Parisot opts for a lighter, more commercial satire of corporate greed and cynicism, beginning in the year 2000 when Dick (Carrey) gets a plum promotion as a mega-corporate communications director just as his boss (Alec Baldwin) is preparing to bail out before stock prices plummet. Dick’s wife Jane (Leoni) has quit her job as a travel agent, so the corporate bombshell leaves them penniless and desperate, resorting to petty thievery and, eventually, plotting high-stakes revenge against the greedy executives who ruined their lives.”

Writer Mike Szymanski adds, “A few flashes of Jim Carrey’s wacky nature shines through, but this cynical look at how the American family can only achieve their dreams through crime is a bit more of a political statement rather than comedic entertainment. Few actresses can hold their own opposite a powerful comic like Carrey, and Leoni definitely matches him — managing to snag a few laughs of her own. But, ultimately, Carrey’s slapstick humour heightens a dark story where the moral is that crime does pay. A few Carrey-isms sneak through, like when he’s alone mugging in the elevator, or when he has a melt-down at the executive club. But, the best scenes are when the couple goes on their robbing rampage — dressed as Sonny (Leoni) and Cher (Carrey) at a car dealership, asking for non-fat muffins when holding up a coffee shop and stealing their neighbour’s voice-controlled Mercedes for a jewelry heist. Their life of crime also improves their sex life.”

Moral: Crime always lays.