Dumb and Dumber
Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American buddy comedy film directed by Peter Farrelly,[1][2] who cowrote the screenplay with Bobby Farrelly and Bennett Yellin. It is the first installment in the Dumb and Dumber franchise. Starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, it tells the story of Lloyd Christmas (Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Daniels), two dumb but well-meaning friends from Providence, Rhode Island, who set out on a cross-country trip to Aspen, Colorado, to return a briefcase full of money to its owner, thinking it was abandoned as a mistake though it was actually left as a ransom. Lauren Holly, Karen Duffy, Mike Starr, Charles Rocket, and Teri Garr play supporting roles.
This article is about the film. For other uses, see Dumb and Dumber (disambiguation).Dumb and Dumber
- Peter Farrelly
- Bobby Farrelly
- Bennett Yellin
- Charles B. Wessler
- Brad Krevoy
- Steve Stabler
- December 16, 1994
106 minutes[1]
United States
English
$17 million[3]
$247.3 million[4]
The film was released on December 16, 1994. It grossed $247 million at the box office and has developed a cult following in the years after its release and is regarded as one of the best comedies of the 1990s.[4][5] The success of Dumb and Dumber launched the career of the Farrelly brothers, established the range of the heretofore dramatically acclaimed Daniels as a gifted comedic actor and revitalized his Hollywood career,[6] and solidified Carrey's reputation as one of the most prominent actors of the 1990s.[7] The film also spawned an animated TV series, a 2003 prequel, and a 2014 sequel.
Plot[edit]
Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two kind but dimwitted young men, are best friends and roommates living in Providence, Rhode Island. Both of them are taking jobs and saving enough money to open a pet shop. Lloyd, a chip-toothed limousine driver, immediately falls in love with Mary Swanson, a woman he is driving to the airport, unaware that she is married. She leaves a briefcase in the terminal. Lloyd sees this and attempts to return it to her, unaware that it contains ransom money for her kidnapped husband, Bobby, and that she intentionally left it for her husband's captors, Joe "Mental" Mentalino and J. P. Shay. Her Aspen-bound plane has already departed, leading to Lloyd running and falling out of the jetway.
Fired from his job for leaving the scene of an accident, Lloyd returns to his apartment and learns that Harry has also been fired from his dog-grooming job after delivering dogs late to a show and accidentally getting them dirty. Mental and Shay follow Lloyd home from the airport in pursuit of the briefcase. Mistaking the crooks for debt collectors, the two flee the apartment and return later to find that Mental and Shay have ransacked the apartment and decapitated Harry's parakeet, Petey. Lloyd suggests they head to Aspen to find Mary and return the briefcase, hoping they can find a better life. At first, Harry opposes the idea, but after realizing there’s nothing left for them, agrees and they leave the next day.
Mental and Shay catch up to the duo at a motel that night. Posing as a hitchhiker, Mental is picked up by Harry and Lloyd while Shay secretly follows them. However, Harry and Lloyd proceed to annoy Mental with their childish antics while driving. During a lunch stop, the duo pranks Mental with chili peppers in his burger, unaware that he has a stomach ulcer. When Mental reacts adversely, they accidentally kill him with rat poison pills (which he planned to use on them) after mistaking it for his medication. In response, police wait to intercept the two on the road to Colorado, but a distracted Lloyd takes a wrong turn and ends up driving all night through Nebraska. Upon waking up and realizing Lloyd's mishap, Harry gives up on the journey and decides to walk home, but Lloyd later persuades him to continue after trading the van for a minibike.
The two arrive in Aspen but cannot find Mary. With no money and nowhere to stay, Harry attacks Lloyd in frustration that night, breaking the briefcase open by accident; after discovering the money, the two spend it on a luxury hotel suite, clothes, and a car. They learn that Mary and her family are hosting a gala and prepare to attend. At the gala, Harry, attempting to lure Mary over to Lloyd, reluctantly agrees to go skiing with her the next day and lies to Lloyd that he got him a date. The next day, after waiting all day for Mary at the hotel bar, Lloyd finds out Harry lied and spent the day with her himself.
In retaliation, Lloyd pranks Harry by serving him a coffee laced with a heavy dose of laxatives, causing Harry to spontaneously defecate quite violently in a broken toilet at Mary's house. Lloyd arrives at Mary's house and informs her that he has her briefcase. He takes her to the hotel, shows her the briefcase, and confesses his love to her, but she rejects him as she is already married. Nicholas Andre, an old friend of the Swansons and the mastermind behind Bobby's kidnapping shows up. Lloyd learns from Andre of Mary’s marriage to Bobby and Andre learns that Harry and Lloyd had spent all of the ransom money, and replaced it with IOUs; furious, he takes Lloyd and Mary hostage, as well as Harry when he returns. An argument leads Nicholas to shoot Harry, who plays dead before ineptly returning fire. Before Nicholas can fire another shot, an FBI team led by Beth Jordan (whom Harry had met at a gas station and Lloyd met earlier at the bar) raids the suite, where Beth tells Harry and Lloyd that the FBI and police had been following them since they left Providence. Harry reveals they gave him a bulletproof vest and gun when he arrived. Nicolas and Shay are arrested, and Mary and Bobby are reunited, much to Lloyd's dejection.
The next day, Harry and Lloyd have begun walking home on foot because all of their purchases were confiscated and their minibike has broken down. The two unintentionally decline the chance to be oil boys for a group of knockout bikini girls on a bus, after which Harry tells Lloyd that they will get their "break" one day and they play a friendly game of tag as they walk back to Rhode Island.
Dumb and Dumber: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 68% of 53 surveyed critics gave Dumb and Dumber a positive review; the average rating is 6.1/10. The site's consensus reads: "A relentlessly stupid comedy elevated by its main actors: Jim Carrey goes bonkers and Jeff Daniels carries himself admirably in an against-type performance".[26] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a score of 41 based on reviews from 14 critics, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Roger Ebert gave the film two of four stars for the hit-or-miss comedic elements, but praised the performances of Carrey and Daniels, dubbing the former a "true original", and writing that the dead parakeet joke "made me laugh so loudly I embarrassed myself. I just couldn't stop".[29] Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Carrey "the new Jerry Lewis",[30] and Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "riotous", "rib-splitting", and gave the film praise for being both a crude and slapstick comedy and a "smart comedy" at the same time.[31] Carrey was nominated for a Razzie Award for "Worst New Star".[32]
Accolades[edit]
Although Dumb and Dumber did not secure any major American film awards, it was successful at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards. Carrey won for Best Comic Performance, Carrey and Holly (a couple who would later endure a short-lived marriage) won for Best Kiss, and Carrey and Daniels were nominated for Best On-Screen Duo.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Dumb and Dumber the fifth greatest comedy film of all time. The film ranks 445th on Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.[33]
