Envy *** (2003, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Christopher Walken) – Classic Movie Review 1553

Director Barry Levinson’s 2003 movie is a totally bonkers, and increasingly bizarre comedy with a top cast and decent script (by Steve Adams) to make it work.

Ben Stiller stars as Tim Dingman, who gets consumed with jealousy over his best buddy, neighbour and co-worker Nick Vanderpark (Jack Black) who rockets to sudden wealth after he invents a spray to remove dog poo. Vapoorizer will make any poop evaporate into thin air! How convenient!

But it all gets really strange when Stiller accidentally shoots an arrow into the air and kills Black’s favourite white horse and an oddball drifter, all-wise bar bum J-Man (Christopher Walken) enters Stiller’s life.

All three performances, wildly idiosyncratic as they are, can be counted successes, with Walken predictably running away with all his scenes and Black unusually and effectively restrained. The women (Rachel Weisz as Stiller’s wife Debbie Dingman, Amy Poehler as Black’s wife Natalie Vanderpark) have little to do, but fit the bill more than adequately.

It’s not the kind of film that wins friends easily, but it is funny nonetheless. Mark Mothersbaugh’s daft vibrophonic score peps things up nicely.

Costing $40million, it took only $12million in the US, and bypassed UK cinemas, being released straight-to-DVD in Europe after its US flop. Bizarrely, Jack Black and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg apologised for the film at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and Ben Stiller has also publicly apologised for it.

Writer Steve Adams is the nephew of novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Bosco (Tom McCleister)’s line ‘Up your ass with Mobil gas’ is taken from Vonnegut’s book Breakfast of Champions.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1553

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