I saw the trailer and it looked (IIRC) to be a standard Jim Carrey vehicle. A lot of mugging and yuks…but not my sort of thing.
But this week I’ve seen on the boards that it was falsely presented in the ads and today in the Washington Post the Starsky & Hutch reviews mentions ‘The Cable Guy’ as being one of the first ‘Stiller and Wilson’ team ups (in what sense it doesn’t say).
So I’m all confused and I ask you kind people to set me straight.
Stiller directed the Cable Guy, but as far as I know, there’s no Owen Wilson. Not that I recall, anyway.
*The Cable Guy * is a very offbeat dark comedy … different enough from Carrey’s usual fare that some of his fans were turned off, but not different enough for someone who doesn’t enjoy Carrey at all.
The concept is this : Matthew Broderick is a guy with relationship troubles. His girlfriend ‘needs space.’ So he moves out of her apartment into a new place of his own… and in the course of getting his cable hooked up, meets the initially-friendly, soon-to-be insane and clingy Jim Carrey. Carrey begins to intrude more and more into Broderick’s life… at first helping him win back his girlfriend, then trying to drive a wedge between them, because he senses that she is going to take Broderick’s attention away from him.
I could be more specific, I guess… what are you looking for, exactly?
Owen Wilson had a small part as the date of Matthew Broderick’s ex-girlfriend. Jim Carrey’s character beats him up in the bathroom of a restaurant restroom.
It was a dark, dark comedy that was wrongly marketed and thus drew the wrong type of crowd to truly appreciate it. Stiller and Wilson are great together, see: Meet the Parents, Zoolander and The Royal Tenenbaums, though I’ve yet to see S & H.
The only genuinely funny bit I found in the movie was the throw-away subplot of Stiller as a pair of twin brothers (like the Menendezes) on trial for murder–these bits only show up on TV news segments when Broderick is watching his TV and are really hilarious.
This movie is precisely the reason why I can’t stand Owen Wilson. His character in this movie (while only a small role) is such an insanely huge jackass that ever since, whenever I see him, I am filled with loathing.
I love the movie if only for the scene where Cable Guy visits Stiller’s character in jail, lifts his shirt, and slams/grinds his bare nipple against the visitor’s window and moans “Ohhh, Billleee”. Cracks up my shit on a regular basis when I think of it, perhaps because my clinically insane co-worker does the same routine (bi-weekly) against my office wall-o-glass, usually when I’m on the phone and have to choke back giggles and snorfing. Good times!
It’s very dark, as others have said, and I enjoy it very much. It might have been a mistake to cast Carrey, but even with his mannerisms the movie works surprisingly well.
I know a lot of people who can’t stand the guy, but for my money, he’s been in five excellent movies. Apart from Cable Guy there’s Truman Show, Mask, Dumb & Dumber and Dead Pool.
I think the movie is pretty good. Certainly not as bad as some people here would have you believe.
But you won’t know until you watch it, will you? Give it a shot. Yes, it may turn out to be a big waste of time, but so what? How many movies have you watched that you didn’t like? Kill a boring afternoon, cook and have dinner while it’s on. Bring a couple of buddies along and laugh at it (or with it) one night.
The premise of the movie is this: Carrey’s character is a cable installer guy. He goes to install Broderick’s cable service, who, being the nice guy that he is, is very accommodating. Carrey however, is a total psycho and through a little cunning manages to shove his way into broderick’s life in manners most unpleasant. And that’s what the movie is all about. The funny as heck shit that broderick goes through at first being this guy’s friend, then trying to get this guy out of his life.
