Quick DVD Review – ‘The Cable Guy’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

For the past three birthdays, I’ve had a Jim Carrey movie from my best mate Stephen. In 2016, it was ‘Batman Forever’; in 2017, it was ‘The Mask’. This year, I had ‘The Cable Guy’ with Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick. This was the ‘funny’ movie Stephen gave me in the three birthday gifts for 2018.

Just to share a few thoughts about Jim Carrey as a comedy actor. My opinion has changed slightly. In the days when I was young, I enjoyed his movies. There was something about his comedic acting that made me feel engaged with his films like ‘The Grinch’, ‘Liar, Lair’ and of course ‘Bruce Almighty’.

How has this changed? Well, I’ve come to realise that I didn’t understand what his comedic acting was all about. It was when I saw ‘Batman Forever’ I discovered his comedic acting varied. Sometimes it was mostly over-the-top; sometimes it was rather subtle and well-meaning. Is this is a good thing?

Well, it depends on your point of view. Sometimes his over-the-top comedic acting is something you can enjoy watching or find very annoying. It works both ways and sometimes it doesn’t. Me personally, I don’t mind since any Jim Carrey movie that I watch is bound to be fun and entertaining.

Where am I going with this? Well, apparently ‘The Cable Guy’ is regarded as a film to be hated by critics and Jim Carrey fans at the time of its release at the cinema. Nowadays, it’s regarded as underrated. Part of the hatred was at the film’s dark overtones and it was unlike any other Jim Carrey film seen before. What’s my opinion on it? I found it a pretty entertaining black comedy film.

The film focuses on Jim Carrey as the titular Cable Guy named ‘Chip’ Douglas who befriends Matthew Broderick as Steven Kovacs after fixing his TV. The story is more about Matthew Broderick’s character than Jim Carrey’s, but the dynamic of this duo is extraordinarily engaging here.

As the film progress, Jim Carrey’s character tries to hang out a lot with Matthew Broderick’s character since he wants to be his friend. This desire for friendship turns into obsession which gets on Matthew Broderick’s nerves. I enjoyed how the interaction between these two guys is played out.

It’s easy to see why Matthew Broderick’s character would feel uncomfortable being around Jim Carrey’s character, since the behaviour of Jim Carrey is zany and goofy as ever. It’s also rather disturbing, especially when Jim Carrey keeps on phoning Matthew Broderick whilst at his apartment.

Sometimes Jim Carrey tries to make up for his awkward behaviour to Matthew Broderick by giving him gifts and friendly gestures, especially with the relationship he has with his girlfriend, Leslie Mann as Robin. But even that does not sway Matthew Broderick who feels uncomfortable with Jim Carrey.

I suppose I can relate to what Matthew Broderick’s character is going through in this movie, especially since we all have annoying people in our lives we want to be away from whether it’s in real life or on the Internet. Maybe hanging out with Jim Carrey a lot would be hard-going at times. 😀

There were quite a number of comedic moments with Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick that I found funny and laughed at whilst I watched the film. Even Jim Carrey’s moments of goofiness were amusing, despite a few disturbing moments when he was quite insane and obsessive during the film.

It was shocking when Matthew Broderick got himself arrested because of Jim Carrey. I felt that Matthew Broderick should be strong and stand up to Jim Carrey in telling him to ‘go away’, but even that doesn’t end it. The game-playing scene with Matthew Broderick’s family and Jim Carrey was disturbing and that dream sequence where Jim Carrey’s chasing Matthew Broderick freaked me out.

One of my favourite scenes from the movie is when Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick are at Medieval Times (which is a real restaurant/tournament arena as I discovered) and they take part in an ‘Amok Time’ styled fight. Being a ‘Star Trek’ fan, I couldn’t help feel a thrill and giggle as I saw this.

By the way, this film is directed by comedy actor/director Ben Stiller, who also stars in the small roles of brothers Sam Sweet and Stan Sweet in the court case scenes on TV. The court case scenes don’t add much to the film’s plot in my opinion. They do add to the film’s climax somewhat but not much.

There’s also Jack Black and…apparently this film has…Eric Roberts?! As in that Eric Roberts who played the Master in the ‘Doctor Who’ TV Movie?! What’s he doing in this?! And yes I know I reacted like that in the same way that I reacted to Eric Roberts appearing in ‘The Dark Knight’ movie, but still.

The film’s climax was dramatic, especially when Jim Carrey ‘kidnapped’ Matthew Broderick’s girlfriend before he falls to his seemingly-like ‘death’ onto the satellite dish. Jim Carrey makes a funny sound effect as he fell which got me laughing. Does this mean that Jim Carrey dies in this film?

‘The Cable Guy’ is a Jim Carrey movie you either love or hate. Me personally, I found it very good. It has a lot of goofy moments on Jim Carrey’s part, but I honestly found this engaging to watch with him and Matthew Broderick. It’s quite possibly my favourite birthday present from Stephen in 2018.

I must do a ‘Jim Carrey Film Review Season’ sometime.

Anyway, thanks Stephen. Greatly enjoyed the birthday presents you gave me! Hope you as well as my other followers on my blog enjoyed the reviews!

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂