When Danny DeVito steps behind the camera, we usually get a dark comedy. The 1980s THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN and THE WAR OF THE ROSES are shining examples of his work. His recent DEATH TO SMOOCHY and DUPLEX make us wonder what the heck is going on. DUPLEX is crude, shallow and its worst sin is that it’s quite unfunny.
Alex Rose (Ben Stiller, REALITY BITES) and Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore, CHARLIE’S ANGELS) have bought a duplex in Manhattan. However, due to rent control, they cannot kick out the elderly Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel, FINDING NEVERLAND) from the upstairs apartment. The old woman quickly becomes a nuisance to the yuppie couple and inadvertently leads to all sort of misery for them. This leads Alex and Nancy to want to murder Mrs. Connelly.
Now I can see wanting to murder one’s neighbor, but this film never paints Mrs. Connelly in a negative enough light for us as the audience to hate her. We hate the snobby Alex and Nancy more. This could work if we liked Mrs. Connelly, but she is annoying. And when I say she’s annoying, I mean she’s annoying in a movie cliché kind of way. I’m losing a lot of patience with elderly people doing unexpected things for laughs. It’s older than the characters and it’s just too obvious. When Mrs. Connelly starts doing the Riverdance, I was going to pull my hair out.
So the film is filled with not a single character one can relate to. DeVito’s THROW MOMMA shows exactly how you make a movie funny when rooting for potential murderers. The original LADYKILLERS is a perfect example of how to make a film that has the audience rooting for an innocent (old lady) who is having murder plotted against her. This film doesn’t know whom we’re supposed to root for.
DUPLEX also throws into the mix a convenient cop Officer Dan (Robert Wisdom, STORYTELLING), who’s always around to side with Mrs. Connelly and be against Alex and Nancy. Throughout the film, logic and common sense are thrown out of this train wreck of a film in an effort to make an unfunny joke. There are a lot of questions that are never asked by the characters, which seem like the obvious questions to be asking in certain awkward or even criminal situations. And if things couldn’t get any worse, the end takes a 180-degree turn with Alex and Nancy, which is totally unmotivated.
Additionally, we get a big ha-ha twist that explains some of the film’s major plot holes and contrivances, but it’s way too late to salvage the film at that point. The film isn’t completely unwatchable, but it comes close. Dark comedy isn’t easy, because if it’s not funny it can be offensive. People don’t mind be offended as much if they’re laughing their butts off. I was offended by this film, not because of the content per se, but because so many funny people thought this project was something worth their time.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
