The Steve Carell/Tina Fey way to revive a marriage

If comedy ends in marriage, as Shakespeare shows us, then is it equally true that marriage ends the funny in a relationship? The man who thinks that his wife can't take a joke sometimes forgets that his wife took him.

Date Night, a tour-de-farce with Steve Carell and Tina Fey as a couple in a marital rut, ticklishly ribs such maxims. Here are a mild-mannered New Jersey mom and dad - a Realtor and an accountant! - confused for shakedown artists, a case of mistaken identity that launches them on a Manhattan misadventure.

As written by Josh Klausner and directed by Shawn Levy, Date Night is the opposite of a madcap comedy. Given the thoughtful leads, it's definitely a sanecap affair. The marrieds lose their wits and find their wit - the quality that originally made them an ideal fit.

The Fosters, Phil (Carell) and Claire (Fey), are a painfully ordinary suburban couple stuck on the shoals of midlife. If you saw them at a restaurant, you'd no doubt peg him as a Boy Scout troop leader and her as a girls' vice principal.

Everyone else at the neighborhood taproom burns with sexual heat. The Fosters? They radiate . . . reliability. Phil and Claire worry about the impending bust-up of the couple they're closest to (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig), but can't share their anxiety because they've each been sworn to secrecy. Their deepest fear is that they've become friends without benefits.

Usually they greet their scheduled date night with the enthusiasm one might bring to an IRS audit. Then one Friday, Claire pours herself into a flirty cocktail dress and Phil is immediately inspired to take her to a trendy seafood place in Tribeca. When they pretend to be another couple in order to score a table, they are mistaken for blackmailers in possession of an incriminating flash drive.

With their matching deadpans and mirroring trick of speaking out of the side of their mouths, Phil and Claire are all the more eccentric for their ordinariness. Carell and Fey mine the humor of predictable characters acting unpredictably - and frequently, they strike gold.

For Phil's spreadsheet smarts and Claire's Realtor composure prove to be forceful weapons in intimidating corrupt cops, mobbed-up politicians, and mobsters.