Review of The Cable Guy (1996) by Parker M — 14 May 2011

2 Stars out of 4.

Ben Stiller's The Cable Guy is too scary for a comedy. Interestingly enough, if it was a horror film I'd probably find it accidentally funny. I believe Stiller is after dark comedy, except that second trait is mostly nonexistent.

Jim Carrey's role as the unnamed cable guy was an awkward shift from an energetic goof to a maniacal antagonist. It's a role that apparently almost ruined his career. I, on the other hand, admire actors who take risks out of their comfort zone and try to hit different notes. A piano should never just have one key.

But everything in the film is so mean, and without any trace of irony. Dark comedies are best when we can laugh at misfortune, and not feel completely terrible about it. Though we should a little bit. The Cable Guy just does not look for dark laughs, but it inspires anger and fear in a farce that fails.

It stars Matthew Broderick as Steven Kovac, a man with a pretty normal life and the typical women troubles. His TV needs a fixing one day, so he calls in the cable guy. This guy does more than just fix your TV. He unabashedly tries to befriend you too, and maybe tidies up your place a bit. Carrey, as this cable guy, uses his physical comedy in a more aggressive fashion. His smile is no longer ecstatic but foreboding. Funny or not, he is playing a disturbed man. In his head he has got a cable loose but the script does not make a joke out of it. It just expects the cable guy's obsessiveness to be funny.

The best example where The Cable Guy does not work is at a Medieval Times festival. The cable guy, who calls himself Chip, invites Steven to this festivity and hell ensues more than we'd every thought could at such a place. The two are appointed to fight each other on stage in a battle that is morbid and solely based on slapstick. We fear for Steven's life, which is not that funny. I've been to Medieval Times three times but there was a point to which I couldn't buy into the film's madness. In this "comedy", I truly believed these characters could get hurt which is breaking one of the rules of farce.

There are supporting performances that don't get much comedic light. Jack Black is Steven's chum but spends most of his time mad and upset, because Chip is always in Steven's presence. Black is usually an excellent talent at playing irascible buddies but here he just looks eager to exit the camera. Ben Stiller plays the Sweet Brothers, of whom one is on trial for killing the other. Stiller's characters are only shown on the television which is interesting but I do not know how Stiller wants to provide laughs. A murder case is serious and this part of the story sits in the corner like some painfully macabre commentary.

There are more moments that alarmed me. One scene involves Chip beating a man (Owen Wilson) who is on a date with Steven's ex-girlfriend Robin (Leslie Mann). I felt sorry for the man and was not tickled by Chip's actions. The slapstick is just too crude without giving us sufficient enough reason for it happening. Stiller is persistent in finding dark comedy, but so much so he crosses the borders of comedy and collapses into the latter.

Luckily the film is not too long. And it's not terrible. Stiller has some scenes that work, mainly because they are so out of the ordinary. While also not being too crude. A scene with Carrey singing a Jefferson Airplane song placed me in another dimension, especially with Stiller nicely using groovy dutch angles. The Cable Guy wants to say something about the obsessions of television and the vulgarity of the media, but it takes those topics and makes them too terrifying. This is a comedy but it rarely feels like one.

I wonder if Stiller is more after a horror film. If it was, I think the film may have worked better but then it might be too muddled in ironic humour. Stiller has no problem bludgeoning the screenplay with wry humour but it is used for mean-spirited reasons. The film is impossible to be just amused or shocked by. It finds a void in the middle.

Carrey is playing an interesting character who just doesn't obtain our sympathy on screen. He's the antagonist, right, but he seems to dominate the screen over Broderick and Mann's purposeful blandness. The cable guy is a character tired of his vulgar reality, but unfortunately he has become a product of it himself. This notion, however, would be explored more effectively in Carrey's later film The Truman Show. What we get of the cable guy exists too much in a world of hate. He's obsessive, possessive, insane, and his incestuous roots with his mother borders on Hitchcockian.

So here we have a complete mess. A mess that has a creepiness to it, but is never challenged by its comedy. Maybe it went over my head, but then that sucker can jump high. This film seems to be missing its antenna.