| ME, MYSELF & IRENE |
 2000 - USADirectors:
Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly - Reviewed by Frankie  Perfect casting has never been a problem for Jim Carrey. Who else could have
made The Mask believable and fun? What type of person would Truman Burbank
have been without him? He has approached all of his latest roles with energy,
and there is no exception here. Whatever material the Farrelly brothers hand
him, whether it's golden laugh-out-loud comedy or gross-out trash, he
delivers it with vigor. Perhaps he is a little too full of energy for his own (and this movie's) good.
This is the role Carrey seemed born to play and he fits it perfectly. He is so good it's scary. The script, however, is frightening for other reasons. Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carrey) is a peaceable Rhode Island state trooper that's constantly taken advantage of by everyone around him. His wife sleeps with an African American midget on their wedding day, and later produces three large, black genius sons. He doesn't seem to care the whole town is laughing at him behind his back. After a day of unusually tough verbal abuse, Charlie cracks, revealing Hank his alter-ego. Hank is the complete opposite of Charlie. Hank likes to fight, is less than a gentleman to women, and wreaks havoc wherever he goes. Doctors determine that Charlie has schizophrenia, and give him medication to control the problem. Irene (Renee Zellweger), a golf course manager, is a young woman that gets sent to jail unawares of her boyfriend's illegal conduct he has involved her in. Charlie must escort her to a New York jail. Before leaving, Charlie forgets to grab his medication. As both of his personalities begin to fall for Irene, Charlie must win the battle between Hank and himself before he loses Irene for good. The Farrelly brothers are famous for their work on Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary. In interviews they have tried to dissipate their title as the gross-out kings of comedy by saying things like, "What is gross? We do everything only to be funny." Not to be too graphic, but I do not find a thirty second shot of a chicken shoved up a man's behind at all humorous. This type of shocking humor is copious. As the film continues, it becomes so abundant that it just isn't funny anymore. An early scene involving a cow that just will not die will have animal activists screaming--and will have everyone else screaming with laughter. Charlie's three black sons (flawlessly played by Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownlee, and Jerod Mixon) are the only things regularly funny in this movie. The rest crosses the line of good taste too often. The Farrelly brothers have the wrong approach to making people laugh. When they did the hair-raising hair-gel scene in Mary, it was outrageous because it came out of nowhere. With this movie, we expect the gross humor. Therefore, it isn't nearly as hilarious or shocking. The romance fails too. Perhaps the off-screen chemistry between Carrey and Zellweger is good, but their onscreen work is horrible. Irene doesn't match the Charlie/Hank character, and the screenplay robs Zellweger of any comic opportunities. She tries to be her usual exuberant and shining female character, but the script works against her. Supporting performances from Robert Forster and American Beauty's Chris Cooper do nothing to help the film. Me, Myself & Irene is about a half hour too long for all of the above reasons. The romance moves along at an unhurried pace, while the comedy wants to move faster. Even if the Farrelly's borrow much from their two previous films, they do one thing here that is genuinely interesting and original. Stay for the credits, and you'll see the name of every single extra that worked on the film, as well as a picture of the place they appeared in the movie. This is certainly an intriguing concept, one that is far more interesting than this shocking, yet bland movie. |
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