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In 1994, Jim Carrey teamed up with Peter and Bobby Farrelly
for the hilarious Dumb and Dumber. Since then, the Farrelly
Brothers have continued to use crudeness to hit box office gold
with Kingpin and There's Something About Mary. Meanwhile Carrey
has recently been toying with more serious matter in The Truman
Show and Man on the Moon. With Me, Myself, and Irene we see
Carrey return to the Farrelly stable of bad taste that does
not hit the mark as often as it should, but is saved by the
winning charm of Carrey, Renee Zellwegger, and some colourful
supporting characters.
The story is crazy in itself. Charlie Baileygates (Carrey)
is a mild mannered Rhode Island State Trooper. His life is turned
upside down when his wife runs off with a black midget chaffeur,
leaving Charlie to look after their three suspiciously dark
sons. The trouble is that Charlie is so nice that he bottles
up too much of his rage, so several years down the track it
erupts as an agressive alter ego named Hank. Charlie is diagnosed
as having schizophrenia and needs to take pills to keep Hank
at bay. Around this time Charlie / Hank is assigned to escort
traffic violator Irene Waters back to her home town for prosecution
and ends up getting caught up in a complicated drama with her
crooked ex-boyfriend, some corrup cops, and a potentially homicidal
albino.
Whilst Carrey is not in top form in this film, he is still
talented enough to breeze through the challenge of playing Charlie's
multiple personalities and there are plenty of opportunities
for rubber faced fun (his pills conveniently give him 'cotton
mouth'). Renee Zellwegger does and admirably charming job of
playing the 'straight' foil to Carrey's madness, a typically
thankless but important role in this type of comedy. Plus there
are some great supporting characters such as Whitey the albino,
plus Charlie's three jive talking genius sons.
While there are some great gags in this film (the best ones
actually involve Charlie's sons, although Charlie's 'morning
after' toilet scene is priceless), there are far too many that
miss the mark completely or push the boundaries of bad taste
just a little bit too far.
Overall, there is enough good stuff here to make this a watchable
and entertaining film. However, this is not one for those who
are easily offended. In addition, Jim Carrey fans may be disappointed
if they compare this to some of his previous efforts.
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