 | THE
CABLE GUY (Jun 1996) 
Director: Ben Stiller.
Writers: Lou Holtz Jr.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann,
Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, George Segal, Diane Baker, Eric Roberts, David Cross.
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The
juice is loose
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Cable
for Nothin' and your Guilt for Free.
by
Jon Dunmore © Apr 2004.
"Chip
Douglas" (Carrey) is a cable installation guy who gives Matthew Broderick
free cable extras, then psychopathically wields that favor to progress their buddy-ship.
An above-average
movie, jealously maligned - for the wrong reasons. Incorrectly marketed, burdened
by the speculation regarding the largest actor's salary in the world at the time (to star Jim Carrey),
misunderstood by critics and panned by mongoloid fans who only wanted more Ace
to sit on their face, THE CABLE GUY (at the time of its release) was routinely
dismissed simply as The Film That Wasn't Worth A Twenty-Million Dollar Paycheck.
Maybe si. Maybe no. But no one will remain on that pedestal forever, so if
your agent is savvy enough, if your producers can talk a good enough game, if the marketplace will support the burden - take the 20-mil and
run! Why did this supposedly capitalistic society vilify the janitor who became a comedian, the comedian who became a movie star, the movie star who defied an industry?
(Rest assured, I'd be whining along with the
critics if the excruciatingly unfunny Jason Biggs was in Carrey's shoes.)
In 2004, actors regularly draw above-20-mil paychecks because
the bloated economy can now more readily support this hedonism. These actors invest one-tenth of effort as Carrey did for his role as Chip Douglas the psycho cable guy. Ironically, it is this commonality
of avarice, this passé flippancy towards Hollywood's golden-haired elite,
which allows THE CABLE GUY, in retrospect, to suffer less the slings and
arrows of outrage over the 'greed' of its leading man.
The
movie and eponymous character are dark, foreboding, blackly funny and - like Kilmer's
iconic Huckleberry Holliday - complete departures from anything anyone had come
to expect from Carrey in his upwardly-spiraling comedic career;
critics and fans alike were taken aback at the frightening surrealism that Carrey
brought to his disturbed character. The critics were too enamored with that 20-mil
to delve any deeper than his 'offensive' lisp, and the contingent of arse-speak
fans sat by numbly, waiting for an "Allllrighty then!" which would never
come.
Admittedly,
Carrey's hamming had reached King Kong-ian proportions by the time this movie
hit cinemas, his two preceding films being ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS
(an excursion to the zenith of over-enthused surfwave-smirk and ultra-over-acting)
and BATMAN FOREVER (where Carrey actually saved the movie from Tommy Lee
Jones's attempt at Jack Nicholson and Chris O'Donnell's mannequin non-presence,
with his over-ultra-supra Method); one of his lines in BATMAN summed up what many perceive as Carrey's shortcoming, when his Riddler character
says, "Was that over the top? I can never tell!" Audiences
expected that slam-hamming to be carried over into CABLE GUY, and the misrepresentative trailers didn't help. Not having a convenient
hole to pigeon the movie, the trailers advertised it as a simple comedy, and critics roundly dismissed it as unfunny, dark,
puzzling.
But
here's the clincher - when Carrey played those over-the-top outré-hams
in previous films, they stoned him for it; denigrating him as if from thrones
of thespian munificence, yet when he subtly alters persona to portray a character more complex than the hams, suddenly they don't want him to change, because it taxes their stunted filmographic vocabulary
to have to think about The Cable Guy's layered personality.
Watch
for Owen Wilson (at that time, not yet The Nose That Saved Hollywood) as the insincere
date; Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick and Janeane Garofalo (Stiller's Posse), Jack Black
(only hinting at the Tenacious within) Kyle Gass (as the Couch Potato!), Eric
Roberts (in a screamingly-funny self-parody), George Segal ("Are you on the
pot? You know you're killing your mother!") and director Ben Stiller
himself, playing twins, parodying the Menendez Brothers tv murder trial/fiasco
("The killer was - Aaaaaasian!").
The
makers of THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998) would learn the lesson in not marketing that
film as a "comedy," thereby allowing Carrey's acting prowess to shine,
unburdening themselves from the pressures of public expectation. Indeed, THE TRUMAN SHOW is an extension of THE CABLE GUY'S themes of alienation,
false perception, reality misapprehended. That film's deeper psychological impact
was so pronounced because we were now seeing Carrey as an Actor (not a comedian
or overpaid janitor) in a role which extended the Cable Guy's predicament to seeking
not only friendship - everyone in town was "pal" to Truman Burbank -
but sincere friendship. Truman, like the Cable Guy, was a victim of illusion.
So now that I've gotten that bitching off my chest, I wonder what's on cable tonight?... I've got ALL the movie channels. Free. My Cable Guy is bringing the ice cream, his favorite flavor: man-crush...
END
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THE
CABLE GUY (Jun 1996)
Director: Ben Stiller.
Writers: Lou Holtz Jr.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann,
Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, George Segal, Diane Baker, Eric Roberts, David Cross.
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