Nightmare dream house

“Duplex,” the new film from Danny DeVito, who moonlights as a director with a penchant for… “Duplex,” the new film from Danny DeVito, who moonlights as a director with a penchant for black comedies (“Throw Mama from the Train,” “The War of the Roses” and “Death to Smoochy”), isn’t all that unpleasant; it’s just wholly forgettable.

DeVito wants the film to be dark; the eventual goal of its protagonists is to murder an elderly woman. And one gag that has Drew Barrymore vomiting in Ben Stiller’s face makes the film gross, as well. But DeVito also goes for cuteness – the film has an animated opening and warm narration by the director. It ends up feeling reprehensibly mild most of the time and finally, with its surprise ending, cheap.Alex and Nancy (Stiller and Barrymore) purchase a duplex in Brooklyn that becomes the house of their nightmares when the building’s only tenant, Mrs. Connelly (Eileen Essel), an unassuming old woman whom they’re forced to accept because of the nature of rent-control laws, turns out to be a menace. She deprives Alex and Nancy of sleep by watching TV all night with the volume cranked, and hinders Alex’s writing – he’s running out of time to finish a book – by nagging him to make repairs and help her run errands all day. When she continues to annoy, what else can the couple do but kill her? And so begins a series of failed attempts, some worth a chuckle and others not, to assassinate the – of course – surprisingly resilient old bag.

While DeVito’s early directorial efforts had some decent style – especially “The War of the Roses,” which featured bizarre camera angles and stagy production design – “Duplex,” like his last film, the similarly disposable “Death to Smoochy,” is rather bland in construction.

The only participant I can commend even half-heartedly is Stiller, who manages to wring a few laughs out of the dullness. Barrymore, on the other hand, desperately seeks laughs, but gets none – though it’s as much the script’s fault as it is hers. Character actors Swoosie Kurtz and Wallace Shawn might as well have not have shown up, as they’re not given so much as a single decent line to read.

If you’re thinking of seeing “Duplex,” just forget it, rather than seeing it and then forgetting it.