Even before the opening credit sequence, the zaniness of the presumptuously entitled Fun With Dick And Jane has become truly wearisome. And it’s all downhill from there. Like wow! It’s a past sell-by date Jim Carrey! He’s flicking a light-switch! Now he’s wearing a Bill Clinton mask to stick up a bank! Oh my sides.
Inept capering aside, this remake of the 1977 comedy is probably as fascinating as a two-and-a-half laugh movie can be. Fancying itself as a post-Enron corporate satire, Fun… is set against the recent Depression era that was the year 2000. (Er, hang on a minute…) In the wake of a gargantuan corporate scandal, Alec Baldwin’s cackling villain makes off with the employee pension funds and the BMW classes find themselves falling on hard times. Incapable of holding down a McJob like the rest of us, affluent suburbanites Jim Carrey and Tea Leone turn to a life of crime. High jinks ensue.
So where are we headed with this? Will Jim and Tea get around to contemplating the inherently corrupt nature of corporate capitalism? Will they figure out that life is more than consumer durables? Like hell. They have a few laughs, they fix Alec Baldwin’s wagon and they get back the outdoor sauna. It’s a perfect revenge fantasy for the former corporate stooge who had to give up their golf cart.
Yet director Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) seems to imagine this movie is so much more. Check out the entirely incongruous half-assed political references – Gore’s election campaign posters appear everywhere, suggesting an alternative happy (Liberal) Hollywood outcome. The end credits kick off with a thank you to Enron and others. Take that, evil-doers.
It’s nice that you tried, Mr. Parisot, but it’s not The Battle Of Algiers, is it?