The Cable Guy

A misunderstood and misdirected movie. The biggest problem with this film is that it’s actually not so much of a comedy, as it is a dark introduction to a man with many a psychological problem. If you go into this movie expecting BIG LAUGHS a la Jim Carrey, you will be seriously disappointed. But if you look at the flick with less emphasis on comedy, and more on the actual story, it’s somewhat effective. In fact, it’s a pretty decent, dark and disturbing venture inside the mind of a man who’s been lonely for a little too long. Kinda like Travis Bickle, but without the taxi, or Rupert Pupkin, without Robert DeNiro…

Seriously though, I don’t consider this film to be a gem by any means, but it had enough moments in it for me to have been entertained for an hour and a half. A few particular scenes stand out, like the basketball sequence, the game of “porno password”, the super-trippy nightmare that Broderick has one night about Carrey breaking into his house and the surprisingly touching moment when Broderick decides to tell Carrey’s character that he no longer wants him as a friend (the shot of him with that puppy dog face under the rain was choice!).

But the film doesn’t gel altogether as a whole. There are too many “attempts” at humor that don’t work, and even though the ending was kinda cool, it was considerably darker than the rest of the film, and actually quite sad. I also “got the point” of the TV tabloid flashes throughout the movie by the film’s conclusion, but thought it was pretty useless during the film.

But how can anyone entirely hate any movie which features cameo appearances by the likes of Jack Black, Owen Wilson, George Segal, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, amongst others. I especially liked Segal’s line (he plays Broderick’s dad in the movie), “Are you smoking the pot?”.

Another funny line by Carrey was “I got you the big screen TV, deluxe karaoke machine, and THX quality sound that would make George Lucas cream in his pants!”. Unfortunately there weren’t too many of those lines in the film, but like I said before, if you don’t go in expecting an all-out comedy, you might be pleasantly surprised at the strength of this psycho’s sick and twisted tale. Poor bastard…his mommy never loved him…sniff, sniff…

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian