FUN WITH DICK AND JANE… THE MOVIE REVIEW

By: Chad Rhodes

This was a fast moving funny comedy showing the downside of life when you get hit with unemployment.

Fun with Dick and Jane
Theatrical poster
Directed byDean Parisot[1]
Produced byJim Carrey[2]Brian Grazer
Screenplay byJudd ApatowNicholas Stoller
Story byJudd ApatowNicholas StollerGerald Gaiser
Based onFun with Dick and Jane
by Gerald Gaiser Fun with Dick and Jane
by David Giler
Jerry Belson
Mordecai Richler
StarringJim Carrey Téa Leoni Alec Baldwin Richard Jenkins
Music byTheodore Shapiro
CinematographyJerzy Zielinski
Edited byDon Zimmerman
Production
company
Columbia PicturesImagine EntertainmentJC 23 Entertainment[2]
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release dateDecember 21, 2005
Running time91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$100 million[3]
Box office$204.7 million[3]

Fun with Dick and Jane is a 2005 American comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller. It stars Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni and is a remake of the 1977 film of the same name. The story focuses on a married, middle-class couple who resort to robbery when the husband’s employer goes bankrupt. Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins, Angie Harmon, John Michael Higgins, Richard Burgi, Carlos Jacott, Gloria Garayua and Stephnie Weir also star, and James Whitmore appears in an uncredited cameo in one of his final roles. Fun with Dick and Jane was released by Sony Pictures Releasing label to Columbia Pictures on December 21, 2005 and grossed over $202 million worldwide at the box office.

Mean While In The Movie..

In the year 2000, Dick Harper (Jim Carrey), an executive for a major media corporation called Globodyne, gets promoted to Vice President of Communications. He convinces his wife Jane (Téa Leoni) to quit her job as a travel agent to spend more time with their son, as his salary would be able to cover their expenses. On his first day on the job, however, while doing an interview on television, he learns that his CEO sold a majority of share of his stocks through shell companies, and Globodyne is accused of “perverting the American dream” by presidential candidate Ralph Nader (himself). As this happens, all of the company’s stocks drop to zero, and everyone, including Dick, loses their jobs, savings, and pensions. Dick goes back to the company to confront Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin), the CEO, but he dismisses Dick’s concerns and flies away in the company’s helicopter.

Dick breaks the news to the family that night over dinner, but tries to assure them that he can find another job as vice president. However, over the next few months, he finds that Globodyne’s collapse has sent the overall economy into a recession, and thus left it next to impossible to find a new vice president position due to there being a large influx of other candidates. In addition, he becomes a target for ridicule because of the television interview. Even worse, Jane discovers that because their pension and all of their savings and investments were in Globodyne’s now-worthless stock, they now have no assets and face possibly losing their home.

Dick and Jane then accept low paying work, but they prove unable to keep their jobs, and after having their utilities cut off, they resort to selling their personal property and taking off-the-books work to stay afloat, the latter resulting in Dick getting arrested and deported, necessitating his illegal re-entry. When the family is given a 24-hour eviction notice, Dick, tired of being screwed around after doing everything right, decides to turn to a life of crime and persuades Jane to follow him. After a few mishaps, they finally manage to rob a head shop, and with newfound confidence, they proceed to get better at armed robbery. After a few nightly robbing sprees, they become more comfortable and professional over time, and eventually manage to retire their entire debt. For one last heist, they plan to steal from a local bank. All goes as planned until the Petersons – another couple formerly employed at Globodyne – make an amateurish attempt to rob the same bank. The Petersons are quickly arrested and Dick and Jane manage to use the mass hysteria to escape the police’s attention and head home, albeit empty-handed.

After watching a news report detailing the arrests of the Petersons and other former Globodyne employees who turned to similar illegal activities to make ends meet, the Harpers decide to cease their life of crime. However, Dick discovers that his failed interview with Ralph Nader has caused him to be investigated, and ultimately, indicted for his unwitting role in the company’s collapse. While drinking his sorrows at a fancy millionaire’s club, he stumbles upon the drunk former CFO of the company, Frank Bascombe (Richard Jenkins). When he and Jane confront Frank, the CFO remorsefully admits that McCallister had planned everything from the beginning: during Dick’s interview, the CEO 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 among others to take the blame, while embezzling a $400 million fortune and getting off scot-free. Frank, who is about to go to prison for 18 months after failing to expose McCallister’s crimes, got a $10 million bribe from him to stay quiet.

Frank tells Dick that McCallister plans to transfer his $400 million in bearer bonds to an offshore account and creates a plan with Dick and Jane to intercept the transfer from inside the bank and substitute a fake form, transferring the funds to an account Frank has established. Things go wrong when Dick loses the form by accident, so they enter the bank to print a new form while McCallister is there making the transfer, but McCallister realizes there are incorrections on the form and spots Dick. In a final attempt, Dick holds Jack discreetly at gunpoint and demands him to sign a check, which he does. Jane tells Dick that McCallister could cancel the check at any moment, but Dick reveals that it was all a ruse to get McCallister’s signature, and Jane, being an art major, can forge it.

The next day, McCallister is mobbed by reporters and former Globodyne employees, all praising him for a sudden “generosity” of his. Dick shows up as McCallister’s vice president and hands him a prepared statement, which McCallister reads on live television. He is shocked to announce that he has transferred $400 million to a trust fund to support Globodyne’s defunct pension plan in gratitude to his former employees and gets carried away by a cheering crowd, befuddled. A news report reveals the company’s former employees (including the imprisoned Petersons) receiving their pension checks from the fund, Dick has managed to avoid indictment, and McCallister’s net worth has been reduced to only $2,283.

A year later, Dick’s family drives a Volkswagen Rabbit convertible into the sunset. While Billy (Aaron Michael Drozin) is teaching his parents Spanish, Dick’s friend Garth (John Michael Higgins) approaches driving a brand new Bentley Azure, excited to reveal that he has a new job with great benefits at a company called Enron.

12.21 look it up

Romans 12:21 NIV

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

You Wanted FREE CHEESE you Got It….

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