Fun with Dick and Jane is a 2005 film and remake of the 1977 American comedy film of the same name, directed by Dean Parisot and written by Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller. It stars Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni as Dick and Jane Harper, an upper-middle-class couple who resort to robbery after the company for which Dick works goes bankrupt. Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins, Angie Harmon, John Michael Higgins, Richard Burgi, Carlos Jacott, Gloria Garayua, and Stephnie Weir also star.
The film generated worldwide box office sales of $202 million. It received mostly mixed reviews from critics. It was released by Columbia Pictures on December 21, 2005.
Summary
In January 2000, Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) has just been promoted to Vice President of Communications for the large media corporation Globodyne. The next day, he is asked to appear on the show Money Life, where host Sam Samuels and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader dub him and all the company's employees as "perverters of the American dream" and claim that Globodyne helps the super rich get even wealthier. As they speak, the company's stock goes into a free-fall and is soon worthless, along with all the employees' pensions, which are in Globodyne's stock. Dick arrives home to find his excited wife Jane (Téa Leoni), who informs him that she took his advice and quit her job as a travel agent after his promotion in order to spend more time with their son Billy. Dick has to break the news over dinner, instantly alarming Jane. Dick tries to think positively, and tries for a few months to get a Vice Presidency at other corporations. Unable to get a job anywhere, Jane reveals that they'll end up declaring bankruptcy in the next couple of months due to their assets being made up entirely of now-worthless Globodyne stock.
After coming to terms with the prospect of being poor, Dick and Jane both apply for low-paying jobs. After being fired from all local businesses, and finding out that they have 24 hours before being evicted from their home, they both decide to turn to crime. Dick borrows Billy's squirt gun and decides to rob a local convenience store, but loses his nerve and merely gets away with a slushy. After several failed attempts, they finally rob a head shop. Realizing that they get a thrill out of stealing, they begin going on nightly robbing sprees. They climb their way up the crime ladder, becoming more professional with each passing night, and eventually steal enough money to retire the mortgages on their house and car, both of which were on the verge of repossession. Dick and Jane's last "job" is to rob a local bank by going undercover as corporate security personnel. All goes as planned, until another couple who used to work for Globodyne, Oz (Carlos Jacott) and Debbie Peterson (Stephnie Weir), make an amateurish attempt to rob the bank at gunpoint. The Petersons are arrested almost as soon as they attempt their robbery. Dick and Jane take advantage of the hysteria over the arrest to give the police the slip, although they failed to steal any money.
Sobered by the Petersons' fate, and after learning of the arrests of other former Globodyne employees who turned to crime to make ends meet, the Harpers decide to give up their life of crime, but Dick panics when he sees on the news that he's about to be indicted for his unwitting role in Globodyne's demise. While drowning his sorrows at the local bar, Dick encounters a drunk Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins), the former CFO of Globodyne, who reveals that the company's crooked CEO, Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin), siphoned off all of Globodyne's assets and then dumped the entire stock, thus ruining the company while getting away scot-free with a $400 million fortune. Bascombe, who just got out of jail after a failed attempt to expose McCallister's crimes, got a $10 million bribe from McCallister to keep his mouth shut.
After learning about McCallister's scheme, Dick, Jane and Frank decide to take revenge. Frank tells them that McCallister plans to transfer his $400 million in bearer bonds to an offshore account in the Caymans. All Dick and Jane have to do is intercept the transfer from inside the bank and substitute a fake form, transferring the funds to another account which Frank has established.
McCallister carefully checks the account number on his transfer and demands it be redone. Dick confronts McCallister and demands that he sign a blank check. Knowing that Dick's threats are empty, McCallister mockingly cuts him a check for $100 and leaves the bank. But Dick reveals to Jane that that was his Plan B: now that he has McCallister's signature, Jane can forge it, as she studied art in college.
The next day, as McCallister leaves his mansion, he is mobbed by reporters and former Globodyne employees, all praising him for his generosity. Dick appears and hands him a prepared statement. Reading it on live television, McCallister is shocked to announce that "he" transferred $400 million to a trust fund to support Globodyne's defunct pension plan, in gratitude to all his former employees. As Dick and Jane lead the cheers from the crowd, there is nothing McCallister can say without revealing his own fraud. A news report later shows Dick and Jane delivering pension fund checks to former Globodyne employees (including the now-imprisoned Oz and Debbie), while reporting that McCallister's net worth has been reduced to just over $2,000.
A year later, in late 2001, the family drives a rusty old Volkswagen into the sunset. While Billy is teaching his parents Spanish words, a Bentley drives up to them. In the car is Dick's friend Garth (John Michael Higgins), who tells Dick he's got a great new job at a company called Enron.
Cast
Reception
Critical reaction
The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. The film currently holds a 29% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 131 reviews. On Metacritic it was met with "mixed or average reviews" with a score of 47 out of 100, based on 33 reviews. Justin Chang of Variety wrote "The rare Hollywood remake that, by daring to reinterpret its source material within a fresh political context, actually has a reason to exist".
Box office
After a disappointing opening weekend of $14,383,515, the film managed to have exceptionally good staying power throughout the holiday season, making nearly eight times its opening weekend gross, eventually earning $110,332,737 at the domestic box office, and $91,693,375 in international receipts, for a total of $202,026,112 worldwide. With a budget of $100 million, the film was a much needed success for distributor Columbia, which had struggled throughout the year. It is one of only twelve feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and still improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 14.9% from $14,383,515 to $16,522,532.
Home media
As of July 6, 2006, Fun with Dick and Jane had generated $43.5 million from DVD rentals.
Production
Dick's company Globodyne, and the way it falls, is a direct parody of various corporations early in the 21st century. The closing credits begin with a Special Thanks To list, sardonically naming executives at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, ImClone Systems, Arthur Andersen, Cendant, and HealthSouth.
The suburban neighborhood in the film consisted of the construction of 12 houses (only front facades), and one fully functioning house all built on the site of the abandoned Marineland of the Pacific theme park in California.
While filming the coffee shop robbery scene, Leoni seriously injured her shoulder while sliding on the counter. During the scene where Carrey jumps into the ceiling and hangs above the bank desk, when he was stepping down, he accidentally fell and smacked his face on the floor. This painful blooper made it into the film.
Paramount Pictures paid Sony to pause filming for a week, so that Carrey could promote his previous movie, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Mordecai Richler, who co-wrote the screenplay for the original film, was not credited in the theatrical release of the remake.
Filming Locations
Jack McCallister (Dick's boss)'s house is the Henman House, located at 33583 Mulholland Hwy, Malibu, CA.
Soundtrack
The score by Theodore Shapiro written for the film was released on January 24, 2006.
Other songs
The following songs are featured in the film, but are not included on the soundtrack:
- "I Believe I Can Fly" - R. Kelly
- "Smooth Operator" - Sade
- "Right Place Wrong Time" - Dr. John
- "What I Got" - Sublime
- "Sandstorm" - Darude
- "Why Me Lord" - Johnny Cash
- "Wedding" - Randy Newman
- "Time Bomb" - Rancid
- "Uncontrollable Urge" - Devo
- "Insane in the Brain" - Cypress Hill
- "Alive & Amplified" - The Mooney Suzuki
- "The Best Things in Life Are Free" - Sam Cooke
References
External links
- Official website
- Fun with Dick and Jane at the Internet Movie Database
- Fun with Dick and Jane at Rotten Tomatoes
- Fun with Dick and Jane at Metacritic
- PopMatters review (12/2005)
- Fun with Dick and Jane at Box Office Mojo