Duplex (2003): Dir: Danny De Vito / Cast: Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore, Eileen Essel, Justin Theroux, Harvey Fierstein: Humor in a Danny De Vito film deals with behavior defects until one factor hits fatality as happened in Matilda and Death to Smoochy. Title suggests collaboration as married couple Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore move into an apartment where the upstairs tenant makes life miserable. Stiller tries to finish a novel but old Mrs. Connelly has him running errands, fixing pipes, and killing a mouse, which eventually leads to the loss of his job. Barrymore also suffer a job loss when wrong information ends up on a disc. They decide to kill her in various ways including the flu, tampering with her duplex, and eventually a hit-man. Very simple, repetitious and unpleasant throughout. De Vito has moments of fine comic timing but the humour is an acquired taste. Stiller and Barrymore are a fine duo but here they surrender to mean spirited writing where viewers will likely sympathize as oppose to laugh. Eileen Essel as Mrs. Connelly is a one note hag who presents a sweet old lady but the reality is something different. Justin Theroux appears as Stiller's friend in publishing. De Vito's films often contain dark humour but in this case the comedy is completely lost due to its ugliness. It regards co-existing with others even if the screenplay is nonexistent. Score: 4 / 10

So viewers are complaining about it being dull and lacking in decent plot.In my opinion plot was good enough which keeps your attention from start to finish.I agree there were not many laughs in this flick but comedy is sprinkled here and there.The old lady is the most evil old hag i have ever seen in a movie.Part of the dullness is due to poor performance from both the lead stars.As far as acting goes the old lady steals the show.Few of the scenes were disgusting and plain awful.The laptop scene was actually hilarious to which most people are complaining about. Writer took liberty with the common sense displayed by the couple,but its quite plausible.Some people just can't say no,and end up being awfully nice most of the time.Entire plot is driven by this very same characteristic of the lead stars. I must say be nice and do not say no to this movie,its quite enjoyable.

Alex Rose (Ben Stiller) and Nancy Kendricks (Drew Barrymore) are looking for a place. They find a nice duplex in Brooklyn for a very reasonable price except Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essell) is the rent control tenant upstairs. Kenneth (Harvey Fierstein) is the real estate agent. Officer Dan (Robert Wisdom) comes in to investigate when the couple keeps getting in trouble over the little old lady.Director Danny DeVito is pushing hard for this slapstick dark comedy. I find little of it funny. I really don't like this couple and I like the little old lady even less. The old lady is too fake and really annoying. It's a lot of fake niceties and passive aggressiveness. I don't like passive aggressive characters sometimes and I really dislike this one. As annoying as it is for the couple, it is more annoying to watch them being annoyed. The more annoying the annoying old lady gets annoying the annoying couple, the more annoyed I got about the annoying antics. I did like the reveal or maybe I like that it was over.

Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore are both likable actors who are usually fun to watch - and that's no less the case in "Duplex." As Alex and Nancy, they play characters who have just bought a new home. The only catch is that they're going to have an elderly woman as a tenant (played by Eileen Essell) and because of rent control laws they can't evict her. Everything seems harmless and innocent enough at first. Essell's Mrs. Connelly does a few things that are irritating (like falling asleep at night with the volume on her TV turned way up) but there's nothing especially bothersome about her. But director Danny DeVito does a great job of slowly turning up the heat in this, so that a slightly bothersome tenant eventually becomes a nightmare of a tenant who drives Alex and Nancy sufficiently around the bend to want to find a way to kill her. I wouldn't exactly call this a dark comedy, although it's a comedy that has some dark moments in it. Both the laughs and the darkness ratchet up immensely with the "choking" scene, when Mrs. Connelly almost chokes to death on a chocolate from a box Alex and Nancy have given her. That was a very funny scene, and from that point on the movie becomes increasingly frenetic in its pace, and even though they're plotting the killing of a little old lady, Alex and Nancy become very sympathetic characters. You can easily understand how Mrs. Connelly would drive them crazy.This worked really well until the end. Then, for some unfortunate reason, the decision was made to throw in a totally unnecessary plot twist. The twist did catch me by surprise (so I suppose it was effective in that regard) but to me it didn't work as an effective way of ending the story, with the end result being that a movie that was at times very funny left me with a bit of a negative feeling. I wouldn't, however, want to let the last five minutes of an otherwise pretty good movie ruin everything. It was still pretty funny, all things considered. (7/10)