Tagline: There’s no such thing as free cable.
Curiosity: It’s generally regarded as the film that almost ruined Jim Carrey’s career, even though it made over $100 million worldwide.
Plot: Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) moves into a new apartment after his girlfriend Robin (Leslie Mann) rejects his marriage proposal. Chip Douglas (Carrey) comes to install Steven’s cable… and much more. He quickly forces himself onto Steven, taking him out to exotic locales (a cable satellite! A medieval-themed restaurant!), introducing him to new woman (who are prostitutes!), and even giving him free cable. Steven gets the heebie jeebies something fierce from Chip time and again, but he keeps taking him back, most likely because Chip’s been giving him great romance advice for winning back Robin. Most of said advice comes from The Jerry Springer Show, but it still gets the job done.
But when Steven tries to pull back from Chip in order to focus on other things in his life – Robin, his job, his other friends – Chip makes with the crazy, essentially stealing Steven’s life. He gets the guy fired, then arrested, and even turns his own family, and Robin, against him. How will Steven overcome this lisping maniac?
Thoughts: For an alleged black comedy, The Cable Guy isn’t particularly dark. I mean, Carrey’s character is pretty insane, but after a while, the film settles into a groove of Chip embarrassing Steven over and over. There’s a teensy bit of satire about Americans’ devotion to TV, but it doesn’t go deeper than, “We all watch it! Wowzers!” Even if Chip wasn’t a cable guy, he’d still be a creepy-ass stalker.
The movie was still interesting to me, though, in a retrospective way. Ben Stiller directed the film, and he opted to bring in everyone from The Ben Still Show. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross show up in brief cameos, while Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick get more sizeable, slightly funnier roles. Owen Wilson and Jack Black show up too, well before their own star-making turns. It’s essentially a pre-Frat Pack movie with dashes of Mr. Show tossed in. Only not very funny.
Reflection: Carrey brings gusto to the title role, and every once in a while, his abrasive silliness got a guffaw out of me:
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