‘Keeping Up With the Joneses’ Is a Charming, Hilarious Surprise

Adam Zanzie

The ads for “Keeping Up With the Joneses” make it look like just another comedy about secret agents, but the movie itself is an expected pleasure: It’s smart, funny and charming. Nine years after his “Superbad” (2007) put a fresh spin on the teenage-sex comedy, here is another Greg Mottola film which sets itself apart from its genre. To give you an idea of what makes “Keeping Up With the Joneses” special: One extended action sequence involves a high-speed car chase, yet the focus is not on the attractive spies in the front seat, but on their innocent neighbors in the rear, recoiling from gunfire and screaming for their lives. The pair doesn’t belong there, yet they are the movie’s real heroes.

Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zack Galifianakis and Isla Fischer) are an average suburban couple, with two children at summer camp and nothing but time on their hands. Another couple, Tim and Natalie Jones (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot), move in next door, and they’re everything that Jeff and Karen are not—smooth and confidant in their looks, appetites, style of clothes and adventurousness in the bedroom.

Jeff is grateful to have some new friends, but Karen grows suspicious. She discovers they are secret agents, and that it is no coincidence that they have moved in next door. The plot is really not important—the appeal here is in watching the actors at work. Galifianakis and Hamm have adorable, hilarious moments of male-bonding, and when one of them reveals to another, “Sometimes, I hate my job,” it’s surprisingly moving. Patton Oswalt steals the show as a villain in the third act, and it’s also nice to see character actor, Kevin Dunn, again, this time in the role of an ill-fated security guard.

“Keeping Up With the Joneses” has plenty of exciting action to compliment the humor, and  Michael LeSieur’s screenplay has a nice message about being a good neighbor, and how courtesy and clear communication are a better approach than mindless violence—this comes across effectively during a scene where a basement interrogation threatens to devolve into Abu Ghraib-style torture. The movie works not only because the actors have good chemistry, but also in the way it successfully revitalizes a tired comedic genre.

“Keeping Up With the Joneses” hits theaters nationwide Oct. 21.