In 2000, Dick Harper gets promoted to Vice President of Communications for the major media corporation Globodyne. He convinces his wife Jane to quit her job as a travel agent to spend more time with their son Billy, as Dick's salary would be able to cover their expenses.
However, during an interview on television on his first day, he discovers his CEO covertly sold 80 percent of his shares in the company; just then, Globodyne is accused of "perverting the American dream" by presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Simultaneously, all of the company's stocks drop to zero, the firm is declared bankrupt, and everyone, including Dick, loses their jobs and pensions. Dick tries to confront CEO Jack McCallister, but he smugly dismisses his former employee and flies away in a helicopter.
Breaking the news to his family that night, Dick tries to assure them that he can simply find a new vice president position. However, he soon finds that Globodyne's collapse has sent the overall economy into a recession, dashing any hope of finding a lucrative new position. In addition, the television interview has tarnished his reputation as being incompetent, meaning he can only find work in retail (he gets a job as a greeter at a convenience store, but gets discharged for seemingly harassing an elderly woman after failing to greet her). Even worse, Jane discovers that, because their savings and investments were tied up in Globodyne's now-worthless stock, the family now has no assets and can no longer afford their mortgage payments.
Dick and Jane get jobs as a retail associate and a workout instructor, respectively, but Dick is fired for harassing a rude customer and Jane is dismissed after unintentionally assaulting a client. Their utilities are soon cut off, and the couple have no choice but to pawn their valuables and take illegal off-the-books employment; this results in Dick being deported to Mexico by federal immigration officers and having to sneak back across the border while Jane has a severe allergic reaction that leaves her temporarily disfigured. The last straw comes when the bank sends them an eviction notice; Dick turns to crime and persuades his wife to help him.
After a few mishaps, they rob a head shop. They go on to have a few nightly robbing sprees, becoming more comfortable and professional, even stealing from people who wronged them during their job search, and eventually retire their entire debt. For their final heist, they come up with a complex scheme to steal from a local bank. All goes as planned until the Petersons – another Globodyne couple – make an amateurish attempt to rob the same bank. The Petersons are quickly arrested, and Dick and Jane lose their chance to rob the place but take advantage of the hysteria to escape.
Watching a news report on the arrests of the Petersons and other former Globodyne employees who desperately turned to crime, the Harpers decide to cease their criminal lifestyle. However, Dick finds that his interview with Ralph Nader has caused him to be indicted for his unwitting role in the company's collapse. Drowning his sorrows at a millionaire's club, he stumbles upon the drunk former CFO of the company, Frank Bascombe. When he and Jane confront him, Frank remorsefully admits McCallister had planned everything from the beginning: during Dick's television interview, McCallister diverted all of Globodyne's assets and then dumped the entire stock, thus ruining the company and its employees and investors, and leaving Dick and Frank to take the blame, while embezzling a $400 million fortune and getting off scot-free. Frank, about to go to prison for 18 months for his role in the scheme after failing to expose McCallister's crimes, got $10 million in hush money from him.
Frank tells him McCallister plans to transfer the $400 million to an offshore account and creates a plan with Dick and Jane to intercept the transfer, rerouting the funds to an account Frank has established. Things go wrong when Dick accidentally loses the form, so they must print a new one in the bank while McCallister is there making the transfer. McCallister realizes there are errors on the form and spots Dick. Finally, Dick holds McCallister discreetly at gunpoint, demanding he sign a check, which he does. Dick reveals to Jane it was a ruse to get his signature, so Jane, an art major, can forge it.
The next day, McCallister is mobbed by reporters and former Globodyne employees, all praising him for his sudden "generosity". Dick shows up as vice president and hands him a prepared statement, which the CEO reads on live television. He is shocked to announce he has transferred $400 million to a trust fund to support Globodyne's defunct pension plan. A news report reveals the company's former employees (including the now-imprisoned Petersons) will get their pension checks from the fund, Dick's reputation is restored and he evades indictment, and McCallister's net worth has been reduced to a mere $2,238.04.
Some time later, Dick's family drives a Volkswagen Rabbit convertible into the sunset. While Billy is teaching his parents Spanish, Dick's friend Garth drives up in a brand new Bentley Azure, excited to reveal that he has a new job with great benefits, at Enron.
The film is based on a "story" (which may have been a screenstory or a screenplay that was rejected but whose basic idea was retained) by Gerald Gaiser which was previously filmed in 1977. (Some sources erroneously claim the source to be a novel by Gaiser, but there is only a novelization by Linda Stewart as "Sam Stewart"; the book solely cites "a screenplay by Gerald Gaiser" as its source, but is clearly based on a draft of the subsequent '77 shooting script, which was credited to David Giler, Jerry Belson and Mordecai Richler.) Peter Tolan wrote the first draft of the remake screenplay. In June 2003, it was announced that Jim Carrey would star in the film with Barry Sonnenfeld directing and Brian Grazer producing.[4] On July 14, 2003, it was announced that Cameron Diaz would star opposite Carrey.[5] The same day, it was also reported that the Coen brothers would rewrite the script.[6] On July 3, it was announced that Sonnenfeld had left the film six weeks before the start of production.[7] Production was postponed until after Carrey had completed his next film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.[8] In October, it was announced that
Dean Parisot would replace Sonnenfeld as director and that production would start in June 2004.[8]Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller worked on the script with Parisot.[8] Diaz then left the film. On July 21, 2004, it was announced that she would be replaced by Téa Leoni.[9]
On Rotten Tomatoes, Fun With Dick and Jane has an approval rating of 28% based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This muddled comedy has a few laughs, but never sustains a consistent tone."[12] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 47 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
Justin Chang of Variety positively described the film as "the rare Hollywood remake that, by daring to reinterpret its source material within a fresh political context, actually has a reason to exist".[15] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times commented that "... the film never settles into a groove, zigging and zagging from belly laughs to pathos ..."[16]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Recycles the 1977 comedy right down to repeating the same mistakes." Ebert was critical of the film's unexplored opportunities and wrote that it instead turns to "tired slapstick". He suggested viewers might watch The New Age instead, which he described as a superior film exploring a similar theme.[17]
Box office
The film grossed $14 million on its opening weekend in third place when competing with King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe during the holiday season. It eventually earned $110,332,737 at the domestic box office, and $91,693,375 in international receipts, for a total, worldwide revenue of $202,026,112, against a production budget of $100 million.[3] It is one of twenty feature films to be released in over 3,000 theaters and improve on its box office performance in its second weekend, increasing 14.9% from $14,383,515 to $16,522,532.[18] The high earnings despite the criticism were partially attributed to the scheduled trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, and the film credited corporate scandals for inspiration.[19][20]
Soundtrack
The score by Theodore Shapiro written for the film was released on January 24, 2006.[21]
^Rabin, Nathan (21 December 2005). "Fun With Dick And Jane". AVclub Film. Archived from the original on 3 November 2019. Dick And Jane's credits thank a rogue's gallery of corporate-scandal all-stars like Enron's Kenneth Lay for inspiration
^Nocera, Joe (28 January 2006). "A Revenge Fantasy, Except It's Reality". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2020. the movie is an Enron revenge fantasy. Which helps explain, I think, why this decidedly mediocre film has made more than $100 million at the box office so far.
