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Review of Fun With Dick and Jane (Theodore Shapiro)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you appreciate every instance in which 1970's funk is resurrected with enthusiastic zeal in a modern film score.

Avoid it... if, conversely, you hear funk in your nightmares and expect the contrived Latin and orchestral passages in Theodore Shapiro's score to save you from insanity.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Fun With Dick and Jane: (Theodore Shapiro) While Hollywood remakes aren't always a good idea, the bevy of dubious corporate failures in real life America during the early 2000's yielded the perfect environment for a revisiting of the 1977 comedy Fun With Dick and Jane. The 2005 revision of the concept starred Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni, both of whom end up out of work and decide to continue their comfortable lifestyle by robbing just about anything. They eventually turn their attention to the CEO at the husband's former employer, an Alec Baldwin character of smarm who squirreled away hundreds of millions of dollars while having taken the massive company under because it cooked its books. As they endeavor to trick him into returning the money to themselves and other former employees, Fun With Dick and Jane becomes the ultimate revenge flick for those who lost their fortunes working for or investing in unviable corporations at the time, and most of the film's best moments involve direct pokes at these inspirational failures. Carrey's antics didn't impress critics, however, and some have argued that his casting added unnecessary stupidity to the otherwise potentially poignant plot. Audiences disagreed, however, making Fun With Dick and Jane one of the more notable holiday success stories at the box office that year. The soundtrack for the movie utilized a wide variety of songs, varying wildly between genre and age. In between these inclusions is a rather predictable but functional parody underscore by Theodore Shapiro, who was making a career for himself at the time by providing glitzy, genre-defying scores for countless B-rate comedy films that occasionally transcended at the box office. As with many of Shapiro's peers in the comedy scoring industry, it's tough to get a feeling for what the composer's personal style of writing is really like; projects like Fun With Dick and Jane force him to emulate others who have come before him and are stylistically all over the map. In this case in particular, Shapiro confessed to following a different procedure when writing the score, declining to wait until the film was finished before writing and recording several sketches based upon the concept and allowing a fair amount of the music to be edited into the film where necessary later. Given that most comedies like this feature an endless parade of very short cues, perhaps there can be no fault assigned to this methodology here.

It's clear from the start that Shapiro tackled Fun With Dick and Jane by returning to the musical roots of the 1977 era of the original film. The dominant style of the remake is that of pure 70's funk, resurrecting Isaac Hayes and all of the stereotypical instrumentation of that genre with unashamed enthusiasm. The keyboarding, guitars, and percussion to this end are all very well handled, breathing new life into the very dated sound. The majority of important "action" cues in Fun With Dick and Jane are handled with some variation of the funk and rock blend of 70's origin, pushing some Lalo Schifrin into the mix as well during the snazziest moments. The tone shifts a bit more modern in a cue like "Escape from the Headshop" and features a distinctively Latin subtext in that cue and the pair of "I.N.S.!" and "Illegal Immigration." While the funk is pretty consistent in its effective development, the Latin elements (complete with hand clapping and castanets) are a bit too contrived by comparison, trying too hard to imitate Zorro-like material in these cues. Likewise, unconvincing are the purely orchestral cues, which start with the "Main Title" and generally address the softer and more sensitive moments in the plot. The score's only substantial theme exists in these passages, introduced in extreme perkiness in those opening titles and taking on a more wholesome tone in "400 Million Dollars." The former cue bounces along with the rollicking bliss of an average Jerry Goldsmith theme for a small drama in the 1990's, though Shapiro attempts to take the idea into Danny Elfman territory in the latter cue. The fuller orchestral moments suffer from a dull mix that drains the life out of the otherwise lively funk score. The duo of "Sleeping Beauty" and "Gun Pull" offers somber orchestral background filler that bogs down the score considerably. The funk, conversely, is where the fun truly exists, and the album arranges the contents of the score so that a representative variety of this music is conveyed in the first four tracks. Expect to hear very little cohesion in this work, whether presented chronologically or not, because Shapiro switches genre at will and only succeeds in tying in the one main orchestral theme in the redemptive end. But on the whole, the score is affectionately functional and will appeal to lingering funk enthusiasts; a very short presentation on album without a selection of any of the songs from the film is a major detriment, though. Equally problematic is "The Insects Are All Around Us," featuring a funk performance by Money Mark that follows an old spoken lecture about the science of crickets. Funny, but highly annoying, just like the score in sum for those who hear funk in their nightmares.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 35:27

• 1. Ameribank Robbery (2:28) • 2. Job Calls (1:06) • 3. Office Chaos (1:30) • 4. Black Jack (2:35) • 5. Main Title (2:36) • 6. 51st Floor (0:30) • 7. Jane Quits (0:34) • 8. Quad Slide (0:19) • 9. Race For The Job (1:34) • 10. I.N.S.! (1:30) • 11. Illegal Immigration (1:38) • 12. Sleeping Beauty (1:33) • 13. Got The Yard Back (1:35) • 14. The Insects Are All Around Us - performed by Money Mark (2:22) • 15. Need a Good Wheelman (0:33) • 16. Escape From the Headshop (0:51) • 17. Bank Plan (1:46) • 18. Grand Cayman Bank (2:41) • 19. The Big Stall (1:22) • 20. Gun Pull (1:49) • 21. Starbucks Hit (1:00) • 22. 400 Million Dollars (1:54) • 23. End Credits (1:41)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a list of performers and a note from the composer about the score.

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