Fun with Dick and Jane

Starring: Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, Alec Baldwin

Director: Dean Parisot

Category: IIA

When the titular couple of the lightweight but enjoyable Fun with Dick and Jane escape after committing their clumsy first robbery, they don't so much flee in their beat-up Dodge as spin out of control. Sliding on a rainy, slippery road - just as their comfortable suburban life has slid away - the desperate duo eventually screech to a halt under a flyover, scared and excited by their lame version of Bonnie and Clyde.

It's an effective metaphor for America's lust for (and fear of) fast, easy money. It's noble to reject the system, but nice to get that new plasma TV. This broad and none too subtle comedy is less a comment on corporate amorality as a satire of the paradoxical desires to eat the rich, but have their money, too. Nominally a remake of a 1970s soft poke at Carter-era consumerism, the new version laughs, sometimes darkly, at the Bush age with its riotous punch lines - like millions losing their savings in the black holes of WorldCom and Enron.

Dick and Jane (Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni) are a typical, upwardly mobile couple who manage to keep up nicely with the Joneses - although the Joneses next door have a Mercedes and they have only a Beemer. One day, Dick is made the scapegoat for the company's sudden bankruptcy by its corrupt chief executive (Alec Baldwin). The couple gradually and comically descend into poverty. At their nadir, Dick waits with Mexican illegals for manual labour, while Jane sells her face to test dodgy Botox substitutes.