Duplex

from Film Forum, 10/02/03

In Duplex, Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore play a couple whose living quarters become a nightmare when they discover the troublesome elderly woman next door. The only way they can figure to end the nightmare is to devise a way to bring the woman's life to an untimely end.

Critics feel that the best way to bring the nightmare to an end is to get up and leave the movie, or else never to buy a ticket in the first place.

David DiCerto (CNS) says the film is "frequently funny," but director Devito "subscribes to a problematic brand of pitch-black humor that tickles viewers' funny bones with a feather of murderous cruelty."

Steven Isaac (Plugged In) says, "Does your family really want to spend the evening giggling guiltily while watching a little old lady with a target painted on her back?"

Michael Medved (Crosswalk) calls it "a pointless ordeal." And Brett Willis (Christian Spotlight) concludes, "I don't really recommend it to anyone."