22 January 2006. Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, and director Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest and Home Fries), had a difficult movie to carry with the idea of a comedy about nice people turning to crime after a corporate executive takes off with its money. Yet besides a little uneven pacing and a few awkward moments in transition, the comedy team pulls it off including a few brief flashes of emotional drama that Jim is capable of. This mostly entertaining and sensitively handled comedy with elements of drama managed to skirt over the land mines and bombs that this movie had to negotiate through to pull off a movie without offending or losing its audience emotionally or sympathy. The plot is thought threw with relative taste in the descent and decline into poverty with turning into a drama. Oftentimes a comedy can easily transition into a drama that by the end ends up turning off everybody. In this movie, the script manages to turn things around (sometimes barely) and keeps its characters above water comically speaking while still retaining its substantive drama, the small amount there is. Jim continues his balance tight rope walk between his over the top comedic antics, a more sophisticated, subtle humorous performance, and his dramatic abilities - not completely without stumbling at times. Overall, this movie succeeds to the end in providing the audience with a comedy entertainment that was its intention while providing some semblance of serious commentary about corporate greed and the plight of the impoverished. Seven out of Ten Stars.
Review of Fun with Dick and Jane
