Fun With Dick & Jane: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

by Heather Phares Appropriately, Theodore Shapiro's score to the 2005 remake of Fun With Dick and Jane -- in which a suburban husband and wife turn to a life of crime to support their luxe lifestyle -- is equally stylish, witty, and tense. Using the scores from caper and spy films of the '60s and '70s as inspiration, and adding hints of electronica here and there, Fun With Dick and Jane strongly recalls David Holmes' music for Oceans 11 and Oceans 12 -- especially on funky, organ-driven tracks like "Ameribank Robbery" and "Black Jack" -- and also sounds a bit like a more mannered version of the Dust Brothers' still-impressive Fight Club score. Since Fun With Dick and Jane is both a satire and a caper, Shapiro's music splits the difference between humor and suspense. The perky "Main Title" uses strummy acoustic guitars and high-spirited brass to convey an ironically hyper-wholesome, all-American feel that gets further subverted on "Jane Quits." Meanwhile, "Escape from the Headshop," "Got the Yard Back," and "Sleeping Beauty" -- an evocative track that perfectly captures the feeling of tiptoeing around in the dead of night -- keep a strong sense of tension running through the score. Elsewhere, Shapiro introduces snippets of quirky punk-pop ("Quad Slide" and "Need a Good Wheelman"), Latin music (the aptly named "Illegal Immigration" boasts killer mariachi horns and castanets), and laid-back trip-hop ("Job Calls" feels like a brief flashback to Morcheeba's golden days). The score features lots of short cues; some of them don't feel as fully developed as they could, but none of them wear out their welcome, either. Even if Fun With Dick and Jane isn't quite as distinctive as some of its influences, it is a clever and engaging score that works well in or out of the film's context.