ME, MYSELF AND IRENE
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Viewed on March 5th, 2001
Jim Carrey can be as funny as anyone on screen with the right screenplay and the right director. He also proved to be humane and soulful in films such as "The Truman Show" and "Man on the Moon." The Farrely Brothers proved their comic worth in Carrey's "Dumb and Dumber" and with their obscenely hilarious "There's Something About Mary." Both Carrey and the Farrelys reunite in one obscenely unfunny and desperate film called "Me, Myself and Irene," which has a great comic premise that is hardly milked for all its worth.
Carrey plays a Rhode Island police officer named Charlie who is seen as a joke in his community. His wife has left him with three black kids, fathered by a snippy black limousine driver who happens to be a Mensa member! They run off together while Charlie is left to raise the kids. Years pass and the
community sees him less as an authority figure and more as a hapless fool. But Charlie is repressing his rage at people and it finally comes out in the form of Hank, complete with an attitude and a Clint Eastwood accent. Now the little girl who plays hopscotch on the street despite Charlie's warnings is
practically drowned by Hank! Not funny. The woman who buys a vaginal product at the supermarket and walks ahead of Charlie on line with tons of groceries is now embarrassed by Hank, who gives a full description of the product on the speaker system. Not funny.
Still, give the Farrelys credit for trying since I thought that eventually the film would find its comic rhythm and exploit the schizophrenic angle of Charlie. Not so. We are left with a plot involving Rene Zellweger as a woman on the run from some crooked cops and a crooked ex-boyfriend involving golf
clubs and some other assorted business, none of which merits as much as a chuckle. Then there is some more business involving an albino waiter who may be a family murderer and tags along with Charlie and the girl, but again, no major laughs to be found. So what we are left with are countless sexually
scatological jokes involving dildos, an actually funny scene involving a cow, a scene involving a chicken placed in an unlikely orifice, and so on. When a nearly dead cow gets the only major laugh in a Jim Carrey movie, you know you are in trouble.
I never liked "Ace Ventura" but I've admired Carrey in it, as I have in most of his films including the often riotous "Dumb and Dumber." For the first time, however, I actually found Carrey excruciatingly boring in this film, exuding little of his genuine comic talent or gift for mimicry. In fact, I am
also a firm believer that Carrey can act and he has a mental breakdown scene that is relatively touching to watch. Outside of that, if the Farrelys paid more attention to Charlie's character than Hank's and if they made Zellweger exploit her comic zest (shown to far greater effect in "Nurse Betty"), then
this might have been a real winner. Instead, it is the Farrelys merely coasting on sexual jokes and innuendoes galore with Carrey merely playing with a dildo or himself. Embarrassing is the word.
also a firm believer that Carrey can act and he has a mental breakdown scene that is relatively touching to watch. Outside of that, if the Farrelys paid more attention to Charlie's character than Hank's and if they made Zellweger exploit her comic zest (shown to far greater effect in "Nurse Betty"), then
this might have been a real winner. Instead, it is the Farrelys merely coasting on sexual jokes and innuendoes galore with Carrey merely playing with a dildo or himself. Embarrassing is the word.
