Fun With Dick And Jane, reviewed by Piers Mostyn JIM CARREY stars as a young executive whose ambitions go into free-fall when his firm's corrupt dealings are publicly exposed.
On his surreal voyage downwards he struggles to hold on to everything he previously took for granted as his guaranteed slice of the American dream - from wide screen TV to front lawn.
The slide into job insecurity condemns him to become part of the marginalised and the poor. He even gets deported as a suspected illegal Mexican immigrant after he loses his documentation.
He and his wife, played by Tea Leoni, finally turn to crime - staging a series of wacky armed robberies. But the person with the big money to steal from is the crooked boss who cost Carrey his livelihood, but who has escaped unscathed.
This is satire with a light touch. The firm that sacks Carrey is an amalgam of World.com, Enron and any number of lesser-known examples. It is replete with small details that rarely fail to land punches on corrupt corporate capitalism.
For instance at one stage Carrey gets a job with Kostmart - a thinly veiled take on Walmart, a massive retail operation notorious for paying low wages. There's a In terms of using popular culture to
reach a mass audience with left
politics, Ralph
Nader's cameo leaves Big Brother
trailing. skit on their neo-liberal management style, with antiunion posters plastered round the room at a newemployees induction meeting.
The film avoids the temptation to blunt its edge by allowing a rival set of liberal politicians or executives to save the day.
Here the good guys are the street protestors who finally nail the billionaire boss. Little stands between them and the big corporation bosses. Cartoon-like in its simplicity and played for laughs it may be, but there is a clear class polarisation.
What's more, the only politician of any description to get a mention is Ralph Nader.
Playing himself in a TV interview, he goes head to head with Carrey vainly trying to defend his bosses before losing his job. In terms of using popular culture to reach a mass audience with left politics, Nader's cameo leaves Big Brother trailing.
What distinguishes this from many of the recent tranche of "radical" movies, is its gross sales - sitting in the top three for box-office receipts in the weeks following its USA release.
It struck a chord somewhere - although not with the indifferent film critics.
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