Director: Ben Stiller
Screenplay: Lou Holtz, Jr.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann,
Running Time: 95 minutes
Genre: comedy, thriller
Steve Kovacs (Broderick) has been kicked out by his girlfriend, Robyn (Mann), and moves into an apartment. When he gets his cable installed, the cable guy, Chip Douglas (Carrey), turns out to be deeply strange, eccentric and overly friendly. When Steve, out of a sense of obligation and guilt, agrees to hang out with Chip, he finds him creepy and aggressive. Steve decides to break off the "friendship", but Chip will not take no for an answer.
When this film was released, back in 1996, Jim Carrey was probably the biggest comedy star around, coming off the back of massive hits like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1993), The Mask (1994) and Dumb and Dumber (1995) which were all based on his brand of cartoonish, rubber-faced physical comedy. While in previous films, Carrey's persona was often abrasive, aggressive, and irritating, he was always essentially the hero, here he is definitely a villain. His manic persona feels at odd with the essentially naturalistic world around him here, particularly the quiet performance of Matthew Broderick, there is a sense of real danger from Chip, he feels like an alien with only a vague idea of how to act as human. The film was released to largely negative reviews and was widely regarded as a failure, although it has becomes something of a cult film now. While the film is funny and does have an edge to it, it's not edgy enough to be truly dark. There are a couple of future stars appearing in small roles, such as Jack Black and Owen Wilson, and director Ben Stiller appears as a suspected murderer on a high profile trial which is seen on news bulletins throughout the film.
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