Of all the movies I have seen this summer, "Me, Myself, & Irene" is, by far, the most disappointing. It was made by brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, whose previous effort was the crude but hilarious "There's Something About Mary." "Me, Myself, & Irene" is crude, but ventures into mean-spiritedness and heavy-handedness. Those are two elements I don't care to see in a film proclaims itself a comedy.
Jim Carrey stars as Charlie Gates, a veteran Rhode Island state trooper who raises the triplets of his ex-wife's tryst as though they were his own. When she leaves, Charlie represses all feelings of anger, and in time, this takes its toll on his work. He stands up to no one, and everyone he knows uses him as a result. Charlie finally snaps, and is ordered to see a psychiatrist, who diagnoses Charlie as a schizophrenic. He has to take medicine to control his affliction.
One day, a motorist from New York, Irene Waters (Renee Zellweger) is stopped for having a busted tail light. A check on her plate indicates that she's wanted in New York on hit and run charges. Irene insists the charges are bogus, but the troopers honor the warrant, and send Irene back to New York with Charlie.
It turns out Irene is right. It seems there is a cover-up at the golf course where she works, and her employer, who is in cahoots with the police, want to kill her for what she might know. An ambush fails to kill Irene, but knows where Charlie has gone to spend the night. She convinces Charlie that she's in danger, and he agrees to help her.
The New York authorities, led by Lt. Gerke (Chris Cooper) and Agent Boshane (Richard Jenkins) give chase. Charlie leaves his medicine behind, giving the film all the excuse it needs for Charlie to go back and forth between himself and his alter ego, Hank. Hank is not meant to be likeable, but he's not funny.
That's the main problem with "Me, Myself, & Irene." Carrey has made me laugh before in efforts like "The Truman Show" and "Man On The Moon." Here, it's not funny to see Hank terrorize children who cross him. It is funny to see him as Charlie having problems putting an injured cow out of her misery or to see the result of his encounter with a sexual pleasure device. In addition to the mean-spiritedness, the chase is too dramatic. The humor is lacking.
Zellweger is the only performer who comes out positively in "Me, Myself, & Irene." I liked her work in both "Jerry Maguire" and "One True Thing," and she's good here as she's forced to run for her life in the company of a schizophrenic. I could feel her anguish as she had to deal with Charlie's bad side. It's too bad the other story elements failed her and the rest of the class. Cooper, Jenkins, and Robert Forster (as Charlie's boss) are wasted here. Sports stars Cam Neely and Anna Kournikova have forgettable cameos.
"Me, Myself, & Irene" suffers from the same disorder as Charlie Gates. It wants to be a comedy, but it throws in a serious matter. It wants to have the same sort of crude humor that made "There's Something About Mary" work, but wound up just being crude instead. I'm sure the Farrelly Brothers have more crude comedy in them, but they need to lighten up just a little bit. They are offbeat and creative, but in "Me, Myself, & Irene," they crossed the comic threshold and didn't find their way back.
Jim Carrey delivers a hysterical performance in this fall-down, flat-out, irresistibly deranged movie (Rolling Stone). Rhode Island state trooper Char...More at Buy.com
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