Fun with Dick and Jane (DVD)

I saw Fun with Dick and Jane before it was released and I even interviewed Jim Carrey for the flick, but I never weighed in officially with my opinion despite giving it good remarks in my Carrey interview. So, let me make it official right now, I like this movie. However, I realized after a second viewing that I enjoyed it much more in the theater the first go around than I did the second time. Could it be that I talked it up too much in between?

Fun with Dick and Jane is a wild ride that takes aim at big business in the wake of the Enron scandal. Yeah, a pretty easy target eh? But this one is so much fun that it is hard to complain. After all, don't these guys need a bit of a slap in the face for what they have done to the American people and the economy?

On top of quick jabs at big business this film also throws a few punches the way of the President Bush, "Now watch me take this shot," proclaims Alec Baldwin as corporate big wig Jack McCallister. Priceless I say, priceless, probably the funniest line in the movie if you ask me.

The film centers around Dick Harper (Carrey) and his wife Jane (Tea Leoni). They are basically your typical mid to upper class family. She has a job as a travel agent while he has a job at Globodyne, a fiber-optic company, and Dick has just earned a promotion to VP of Communications and he is thrust on television to report Globodyne's quarterly earnings only to be confronted with news that company CEO, Jack McCallister is selling off shares left and right and the company is headed for a scandalous nose-dive.

Well, the Harper family obviously has all its money wrapped up in Globodyne leaving them broke and since Jane quit her job after Dick's promotion they are, for lack of a better word, fucked. So what do you do in such a situation? Well, for starters you steal, cheat and lie to get back to where you were. This is all before a calculated plan to get back at the man. As ridiculous as it may sound I actually enjoyed every bit of this film and will watch it again.

As for the DVD special features it is a mixed bag that is headlined by a gag reel and a decent amount of deleted scenes, the best of which is when Dick and Jane talk dirty to each other and Dick calls Jane a "whore", what happens next is damned funny. The commentary I could do without and the "publicity outtakes" are pretty much just junket interview clips that really add no value to the DVD.

For a lot of people I think this DVD is a rental, and a worthwhile rental. For many others it is a worthy buy, it just depends on your tolerance for Jim Carrey zaniness and how many times you think you can watch it. For me, it is a worthy buy, but maybe I am just pissed off enough at big corporations that it just hit home with me a little more.