THE CABLE GUY
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
**1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1996, PG-13, 97 minutes [1 hour, 37 minutes] [comedy] starring: Jim Carrey (Chip), Matthew Broderick (Steven), Leslie Mann (Robin), Jack Black (Rick), produced by Andrew Licht, Jeffrey A. Mueller, Judd Apatow, written by Lou Holtz Jr., directed by Ben Stiller.
"The Cable Guy" seems to have a schizophrenic personality. I can't tell if it wants to be a wacky Jim Carrey flick (a la "Dumb And Dumber," "The Mask"), or just another straight comedy. I think it tries to combine the two, and even so, it doesn't work well. To make a comedy truly zany, every aspect to it must be over the top, it cannot be remotely serious.
Jim Carrey may be a comic genius. Most of his humor stems from wild physical antics, and the fact he can make it seem funny instead of stupid is quite an accomplishment. Here he stars as Chip, a lonely cable installer who speaks with a funny lisp. Like many of Carrey's characters, Chip is a human cartoon of sorts: he says demented (but funny) things, and he does things no normal person would do. In short, he has a very animated personality. Now all of this is fine, the problem here is it doesn't keep with the rest of the film.
Matthew Broderick co-stars as Steven, a young businessmen who is on the outs with his girlfriend and has just moved into a new apartment. Steven is a such a normal character he seems a bit stiff, especially considering how charming Broderick can be (i.e. "Ferris Bueller"). When Chip arrives to install the cable, Steven doesn't seem to notice how silly Chip is, which is the film's first major mistake. We can clearly see through Chip, it's obvious he's deranged. Chip forms an almost homosexual passion for Steven, and when a slight friendship starts between them, it doesn't seem to fit because they are so different.
The first act contains good, funny gags and other Carrey routines. No story or plot seems to be forming but it doesn't really matter... at first. By the second act, a subplot involving Steven's efforts to win back his girlfriend Ro bin (Mann) starts to become the focal point. But once we realize Carrey is the only interesting (and funny) element to this movie, it seems irrelevant. Eventually Steven finds Chip to be overbearing, and when he tries to "break up" with him we get a slew of events that are more bizarre than funny.
The entire middle section seems non-existent. There had been no real plot driving the story, so when it becomes a comedic version of "Fatal Attraction," the transition is not very smooth. It's difficult to tell if Chip's obsession with Steven is supposed to be plausible (at least for a comedy). Initially, we were laughing at Carrey's cartoonish antics, but at least they had a sense of innocence to them. His character becomes so twisted the bit wears thin and isn't funny.
Comedies are supposed to be fun, but this film takes the bizarre obsession too seriously. Weirdness can be funny, and this film does make some good use of that, but the ending is so far out it doesn't make much sense.
I'm not sure what the point of "The Cable Guy" was. It's obviously intended to be a disposable commercial comedy taking advantage of Carrey's eccentricity, but the film becomes much stranger than it needs to be, and thus the comedy suffers.
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