Delicious dark comedy.

The movie got me where I live, but I think that even non-Park Slope real-estate owners will have a blast at Duplex: It's one of the most unnerving slapstick extravaganzas I've ever seen.

Stays funny despite rickety gags because Ben Stiller and 81-year-old Eileen Essel are old pros at playing it straight.

Without Essel, this might have been a run-of-the-mill dark comedy. With the 86-year-old British thespian, it's a wickedly funny and audacious movie in which she puts her capable co-stars in the shade.

A refreshingly mean-spirited gothic real estate comedy.

It's stylish, it's sort of smart, it's full of misplaced talent. But it's not funny enough, and maybe, in a way, not dark enough either.

It's a mean little movie, but it's also thin and repetitive, a premise in search of a story.

Playing straight man isn't really Barrymore's strength, but former "Simpson's" writer Larry Doyle's script is funny and Stiller is even funnier; he turns even the more juvenile moments in something to laugh at.

A bitter little fable of rent control and its discontents, Duplex moves rapidly into darkness and claustrophobia.

Larry Doyle and John Hamburg's script is full of holes, but this is still pretty damn funny--thanks mostly to Barrymore, who seems to be retracing Lucille Ball's trajectory from sex kitten to comedienne.

More demanding viewers hoping for the cruel wit of DeVito's "Throw Momma From the Train" or "The War of the Roses" will likely be disappointed by its lack of comic bite.

There's too much contrivance and not enough plausibility, and so finally we're just enjoying the performances and wishing they'd been in a more persuasive movie.

Stooping to low-rent laffs By ELIZABETH WEITZMAN SPECIAL TO THE NEWS Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore & Eileen Essel (on floor) DUPLEX. With Ben Stiller, Drew Barrymore. Directed by Danny DeVito. Running time: 88 mins. Rated PG-13: Slapstick violence, gross-out humor. There are people who can look at a creaky, crumbling house and home right in on the solid framework and fabulous fireplace. In "Duplex," Ben Stiller is the fireplace. As for the structure, well, this rather rickety comedy boasts a solid base, though sadly, too much of it has been plastered over with moldy jokes and leaky plot devices.

Tells an increasingly outlandish story with very funny (and often gross) moments. But about an hour in, it grows derivative and disappointing.

The result is a cheap and cloying contraption that doesn't know when to stop smirking.

Might have been a tasty black comedy if treated as such, but the twisted sense of humor is never allowed to elevate beyond the cutesy sensibilities of a romantic comedy.

Not terribly funny. When it does strain for humour, it opts for Farrelly brothers-style gross-outs -- vomit and chewed food and blocked drains -- which makes the movie itself seem like some kind of undigested expulsion rather than a well thought-out idea.

Looks and sounds like a black comedy, but by the time DeVito reaches the cutesy, nonsensical ending, he's lost the will to follow through on it.

Its drawback is that it's a one-joke affair, leading to a repetitiousness that makes the film seem overlong even at 87 minutes.

Runs into construction problems, maybe from too many foremen. DeVito favors pushy slapstick; Stiller prefers hotshot sarcasm. Barrymore's comic talents are wasted; she's there for decoration.

Director DeVito doesn't make his characters' cold-blooded decisions anywhere near as credible as he did in territorial black comedy "The War Of The Roses." Someone's losing their touch, it seems.

Were it allowed to be dark, Duplex would probably be more interesting, possibly even with cult appeal. Call it a fixer-upper with potential.

Could have used two rangier lead players than Stiller (doing his patented aggrieved-yuppie shtick) and Barrymore (who's so perky you want to slap her); the 81-year-old Essell, however, is a wicked pleasure throughout.

This mean-spirited little comedy actually isn't bad.

Somewhere along the line, the comedy turned from dark and playful to mean-spirited and sophomoric. A waste of the considerable appeal and comic talents of leads Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore.

Duplex's tenant-from-hell scenario is as predictable as it is tedious -- a tinny, unsatisfying throwaway farce.

Unfunny and misguided, Duplex deserves a wrecking crew.

There's no slow descent into ruthless warfare and we get neither the giddy charge of their bad behavior, nor the guilty sting of complicity in their ruthless desire. All that's left is an idea still in search of a script.

This is a one-note deal, and it doesn't take long before you want to, well, just move out and leave these characters in their rent-controlled limbo.