Despite confident direction and performances, it rarely lifts itself above the ordinary.
Comment
08/12/08
Duplex (2003)
37 %
Reviews Counted: 104 Fresh: 38 Rotten:66 Average Rating: 5/10
Consensus:
It was funnier when it was called Throw Momma From the Train.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Synopsis: Danny DeVito directs Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore in this devilish black comedy reminiscent of DeVito's THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN and THE WAR OF THE ROSES. Alex Rose (Stiller) and Nancy Kendricks (Barrymore) are a young, professional, New York couple in search of their dream home. When... [More]
Genre: Comedies
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Ben Stiller, Eileen Essell, Harvey Fierstein, Justin Theroux
Director: Danny DeVito
Screenwriter: Larry Doyle, John Hamburg
Producer: Stuart Cornfeld, Nancy Juvonen, Drew Barrymore, Ben Stiller
Screenwriter: Larry Doyle, John Hamburg
Producer: Stuart Cornfeld, Nancy Juvonen, Drew Barrymore, Ben Stiller
Reviews
Top Critic
The material is capably handled by director DeVito and lifted by Stiller, a dab hand at physical comedy who also exhibits some onscreen chemistry with Barrymore.
01/26/06
Top Critic
Barrymore wanders through scenes as if she has trouble remembering what day it is.
04/13/04
Top Critic
There's a nice dark comedy in this script that's flattened by DeVito's direction, which continually opts for manic goofiness and cruel vulgarity.
02/12/04
This numbing barrage of demolition humor scores only a modest laugh count.
07/22/08
Top Critic
Expecting Stiller to look stressed and Barrymore to look sweet isn't exactly demanding too much of your stars.,
07/16/04
Hard as it is to care about these homicidal homemakers, it is harder still to laugh at them.
04/30/04
Offer[ed] as a grown-up variation of the kind of fart-and-vomit humor that's passed around at the cineplex every day. But why? It is what it is.
03/19/04
Contando com um bom desfecho (algo raro nos dias de hoje), Duplex representa um passatempo razoável.
03/17/04
Duplex collapses in rubble long before the duplex of the film does, and it’s not even interesting wreckage.
01/01/04
not since 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,' has geriatric terrorism been so creepy.
12/31/03
Had Danny DeVito been born British and a quarter-century earlier, he would have fit right in at Ealing Studios, the English outfit known for biting black comedies.
11/04/03
DeVito keeps hurling handfuls of well-funded excrement on the screen and expects us to think it's funny.
10/24/03
The interplay between Stiller, Barrymore, and the elderly Essel is what makes Duplex hum perfectly at times.
10/10/03
A controlled farce that finds its cast mining several big laughs while DeVito, the cynic, deepens the dysfunction with a final surprise twist.
10/09/03
Related Forums
DUPLEX is duplicitous, a pseudo-drama posing as a comedy with one joke - at the end?
by: Darko, Donnie 5/28/05
by: Darko, Donnie 5/28/05
images from the film
by: lockerer 7/31/03
by: lockerer 7/31/03
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