By Geno McGahee
In 1996, Jim Carrey was riding high with huge box office successes like THE MASK, DUMB & DUMBER and ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS. He couldn’t miss, or at least that was the thought until he starred in the 1996 film THE CABLE GUY. With a budget of 47 million, it brought in over 100 million. It basically broke even, which is a far cry from the monster amount of money that the others brought in.
THE CABLE GUY had all the elements to hit and hit hard. Starring Carrey and having other talents like Matthew Broderick, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Leslie Mann, the film had a lot going for it. Considering it was directed by Stiller and had all that comedic talent, it should have hit but the film wasn’t very good and hasn’t aged well either.
Steven (Broderick) just broke up with his girlfriend, Robin (Mann), and is moving into his new apartment. His cable is not working properly and he calls the cable company, leading to a visit from Chip (Carrey), the cable guy. All is normal, initially, despite the odd personality of Chip. He even gives Steven free cable and offers to show Steven a huge satellite where the cable signal comes from. Steven politely accepts without really meaning it, but he gets forced into it.
Steven doesn’t do well with friends, often ignoring his best friend, Rick (Jack Black), but the intrusive nature of Chip is forcing him to impossible to ignore. Chip becomes obsessed with the friendship he wants with Steven and starts showing up in his life all over the place.
Although he doesn’t want Chip as a friend, Steven sees him as useful in rekindling his relationship with Robin. Chip works overtime to make Steven happy, including giving him a big screen TV, a karaoke machine and surround sound. He works on getting Robin back with Steven by attacking her date (Wilson), attacking him and beating him severely.
As Steven and Robin get back together, Steven starts completely ignoring Chip and that doesn’t go over well. Chip gets really upset and starts messing with Steven’s life, including getting him arrested and starts ruining the relationship with Robin, leading to a final showdown back where they started, at the satellite dish.
THE CABLE GUY is not a funny movie with the exception of a few moments. Ben Stiller has a small role as a basic Menendez brother that is sort of funny and Eric Roberts was hilarious in his very small role, but the majority of the humor comes from the reactions of Broderick. The funniest part of the film was when Chip was forcing a game of adult password and Steven was teamed up with his mother and as he was given the word, the reactions of Broderick were very funny. Other than that, there wasn’t much here.
THE CABLE GUY is not funny and has not aged well. Carrey’s performance allowed him to create a new character but he’s unlikable and the most popular scene of this film, the karaoke scene, is unfunny and annoying. Carrey really missed the mark on this one, but he would rebound from this failure with the enormously successful LIAR LIAR, a good comedy.
