Ben Stiller, Jack Black collide in ‘Envy’

By Adam Jardy
The Lantern

COLUMBUS, OHIO (U-Wire) - When one mixes the comedic talent of Jack Black with the onscreen presence of Ben Stiller, a great recipe for cinematic brilliance seemingly exists.

In the new release, “Envy,” the two actors lead the way through a plot that is at times gross and dark, but always funny. Black plays Nick, the daydreaming but lovable co-worker, neighbor and best friend of Tim (Stiller). The two live in a neighborhood situated directly under massive power lines and work at a sandpaper factory. Nick is easily distracted and told he needs to be more focused at work, like Tim.

One day Nick gets the idea to create a spray to get rid of dog feces. He even gives it a name — Vapoorize, with the word ‘poo’ underlined. Despite Tim’s objections, Nick begins working on the product and, eventually, succeeds. Tim stares in disbelief as he realizes that his “unfocused” friend is about to become insanely rich, and Tim passed on his chance to join with Nick.

Nick becomes famous and builds a mansion directly across the street from Tim. The two remain friends, and Nick frequently buys presents for Tim, whose wife is not-too-secretly disgusted with his failure to see the genius of Nick’s idea. She takes their children and moves in with her sister.

While they are gone, Nick loses his patience at his boss at work and gets himself fired. Dejected, he ends up sitting in a bar and drinking with a local known as the J-Man (played superbly by Christopher Walken), who convinces him that he needs to gain some revenge on his best friend.

That night, in a drunken stupor, he accidentally kills Nick’s beautiful white horse and, horrified, buries it in his back yard.

The envy growing in Tim’s heart becomes more evident as the movie goes along. When Nick proposes they become partners and split the money 50/50, Tim somewhat reluctantly agrees. The pressure to confide in his friend about what happened to his horse continues to increase, while the J-Man starts trying to blackmail Tim by threatening to tell Nick about how his horse died. Black continues to prove he belongs on the big screen with his performance as Nick. While his acting occasionally comes across a little forced, he still ably manages to portray a true-blue best friend who refuses to let money go to his head. Across the street, Stiller seems to not have to act very hard to play his character. The role of Tim seems to have been written specifically for him.

The only actor to upstage Black is Walken. There is no better actor available to play a crazy man, and this comes across perfectly throughout the movie. As far as secondary characters go, this is one that yviewers will find themselves wishing was onscreen more. Walken dressed as a crazy ragged bum is a sight that is very difficult to forget.

The best part about this movie is how well all the secondary plots tie together right at the end. The only thing that remains unresolved is the one question that every character seems to ask at some point throughout the movie: Where does the poop go?

One less appealing aspect of the movie is the relationship between Tim and his wife, Debbie (played by Rachel Weisz of “The Mummy”). Their relationship becomes more and more strained because she holds a grudge against Tim for not investing in Nick’s idea when it was being developed all is reconciled when the friends become partners and Tim gets rich. This goes directly against the main point of the movie, which seems to be that money isn’t as important as people can make it out to be.

Despite this contradiction, the movie flows well as a whole and withholds key plot resolutions until the very end. “Envy” won’t make anyone think hard, but everyone laugh hard, especially when Walken takes an arrow to the back.