The Cable Guy

An obvious departure for comedic star Jim Carrey, The Cable Guy follows Matthew Broderick’s mild-mannered Steven Kovacs as he’s increasingly menaced by his demented cable-tv installer (Jim Carrey’s Chip Douglas). It’s ultimately not difficult to see why The Cable Guy was considered a disappointment upon its original theatrical release, as the movie, despite Carrey’s persistently over-the-top turn as the maniacal central character, generally resembles a fairly run-of-the-mill “blank from hell” thriller more than it does an actual comedy – with filmmaker Ben Stiller opting to emphasize the progressively dark elements contained within Lou Holtz Jr’s screenplay (including an unexpectedly violent sequence wherein Carrey’s deranged figure beats a would-be paramour of Steven’s girlfriend). And although Stiller has peppered the narrative with a handful of striking sequences – eg Chip offers up a memorably unhinged karaoke performance of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” – The Cable Guy suffers from a midsection that far-too-often relies on the tropes and cliches found within movies of this type. (The ending is especially hackneyed in that way, to be sure.) By the time the eye-rollingly heavy-handed conclusion rolls around, The Cable Guy has firmly cemented its place as a sporadically engaging yet often misguided thriller that passes the time well enough, admittedly, but accomplishes little else.

**1/2 out of ****