THE CABLE GUY
A film review by Rebecca Wan
Copyright 1996 The Flying Inkpot
Directed by: Ben Stiller Written by: Judd Apatow (uncredited), Lou Holtz Jr. Cast: Matthew Broderick (Steven Kovacs), Jim Carrey ("Chip Douglas"), Leslie Mann (Robin), Jack Black (Rick), George Segal (Mr Kovacs), Diane Baker (Mrs Kovacs). Produced by: Columbia Pictures / Licht/Mueller Film Corporation Running Time: About 90 minutes. Rating : *** out of ***** Theatres : Just about everywhere.
"I am the bastard son of Claire Huxtable! I am the lost
Cunningham! I learned the facts of life from The Facts of Life!
Don't you get it? Someone has to save all the other cable boys and
girls, someone has to kill the babysitter."
These are probably the best and worst lines in THE CABLE GUY, and in a knowing, twisted film-student-with-a-vengeance sort of way, the combined effort of director Ben Stiller (whom I hereby forgive forever for making REALITY BITES) and writer Holtz is a dark and magnificently lunatic mock-celebration of the flickering blue parent generation. OK, it's also an excessive throw-in-all-the-popular-media-references-you-can type of smartass caper with more intelligent directing than most of Carrey's other films (although that isn't saying much), but being the first with an actual body-functions-joke minimum, this film could very well be Carrey's first into the comedians-can-act-too spectrum of Hollywood.
Unlike previous Jim Carrey successes like the Ace Ventura movies or DUMB AND DUMBER, which were no more than empty vehicles for Carrey's manic personality and a surprisingly inventive number of flatulent jokes, The Cable Guy not only has a plot that follows to conclusion, more importantly--gasp!--it has a concept: too much TV is, well, it's just bad for you.
This is overwhelmingly proved by Chip Douglas (Carrey), the cable guy who fixes architext Steven Kovacs up with free cable television channels and then, taking Kovacs' unwilling friendship for granted, proceeds to mess up his life in a number of ways: he throws mind-splinting karaoke parties, wrecks friendly basketball games, stalks Stephen and eventually lands him in jail. As Chip, Carrey is the optimum product of self-conscious popular media gone deliciously and disturbingly wrong. He relates everything to television past and present, assaulting his newly appointed *schlemielman* with catchphrase melanges from sixties sitcoms and reenacting movie scenes with a screaming, maniacal sense of irrelevence that is darkly engaging to us postmodern audiences (or maybe just me), and morally unsettling to people like my parents, who would consider Mr Carrey to be a product of a satanic cult instead of mere television.
But then of course, isn't that the point? CABLE GUY is *about* the dangers of television, if we are to believe the desperation on Chip-Carrey's face as he dangles from a gigantic satellite above imminent doom. *Somebody has to kill the babysitter*, he implores, bringing to mind the kitschy flashback the film provided its audience earlier about Chip's childhood loneliness, sans siblings and parents, leading to a life of absorption in front of the TV.
But the moment, like everything in this movie, turns on itself with a beautiful slow-motion climax that intensifies to blackness, resembling the same metafictional acknowledgement of media-constructed realities in the ending of that British bastion of silliness now revered by millions across the world--Carrey's earlier counterparts--Monty Python's Holy Grail.
In the end, CABLE GUY is worth watching if only to see Carrey actually sort of act. Or at least, acknowledge the presence of his cast. Perhaps this is more to director Stiller's credit, who refuses to allow the film to degenerate into yet another Carrey showcase. Delightful surprise guest appearances from Stiller and longtime partner in crime Janeane Garafalo also keep the enjoyment going when Carrey's hyperactivity annoys--and make no mistake, he will annoy, though far less than in previous movies--and Carrey's own performance, subdued as it is, is near-perfect for the media pastiche (the word no self-respecting postmodernist would leave home without) that he represents.
Like Mork (and much like Robin Williams himself), Carrey's comedy evokes every pose, every gesture, every facial expression, tone and technical idea ever used in the history of modern media, aggrandized and fast-forwarded to grotesque proportions to pass for humor. Like Mork, Carey's Chip Douglas (the name itself, the film reveals, is filched from "My Three Sons," so Carey's character is literally nameless, never truly identified, and a macabre inversion of Leone's Man With No Name) merges real life conversation with commercial snippets and a movie quotes compendium, and a paranoid self-consciousness that ironically blends fantasy with real life. "If this were a movie, there would be danger music," he snarls while playing villain with Stephen's girlfriend, singing along *with* the actual soundtrack with knowing vengeance.
It is therefore perhaps the film's self-awareness on the whole that makes THE CABLE GUY weird, what with its parodic freeze frames and the vicious mock-reality celebrity trials to name a few of the fun things Stiller gets the film up to. And Hollywood has never taken to metadramatics very well. THE CABLE GUY was generally badly received by critics and grossed little more than it took to make at the US Box Office (according to figures taken from the Internet Movie Database). Still, I recommend this film for its widescreen absurdity, great performances all round, and its dark vision of our crazy lives. Carry on, Carrey.
The Flying Inkpot Rating System: * Wait for the TV2 broadcast. ** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha! *** Pretty good, bring a friend. **** Amazing, potent stuff. ***** Perfection. See it twice.
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