I Love You Phillip Morris is a good balance of Jim Carrey goofiness and Catch Me If You Can crime cleverness, and I was surprised at how complex some of the later cons and jail escapes got. Usually films fall apart after their introductory scenes, but Phillip Morris continues strong for most of the movie with only the few emotional scenes holding it back from being great.
Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) leads the life of a moral man who’s a cop married to a religious wife with an innocent family. After a discovery about his past teaches him he doesn’t know as much about himself as he had thought, he lets out other various concealed truths about who he is. He quits his job and abandons his family to embrace his hidden homosexuality, which leads to an expensive lifestyle that’s handled by performing several immoral cons that eventually send him to jail. There he meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). The rest of the film is his attempt to keep the two of them together by continuing a life of breaking the rules, resulting in some truly impressive schemes.
I Love You Phillip Morris is a good balance of Jim Carrey goofiness and Catch Me If You Can crime cleverness, and I was surprised at how complex some of the later cons and jail escapes got. Usually films fall apart after their introductory scenes, but Phillip Morris continues strong for most of the movie with only the few emotional scenes holding it back from being great.
Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) leads the life of a moral man who’s a cop married to a religious wife with an innocent family. After a discovery about his past teaches him he doesn’t know as much about himself as he had thought, he lets out other various concealed truths about who he is. He quits his job and abandons his family to embrace his hidden homosexuality, which leads to an expensive lifestyle that’s handled by performing several immoral cons that eventually send him to jail. There he meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). The rest of the film is his attempt to keep the two of them together by continuing a life of breaking the rules, resulting in some truly impressive schemes.{{page_break}}
Ewan McGregor did such an amazing job with transferring his love and sadness to the audience that his ability to show emotions made it easy to realize how unsuccessful Jim Carrey was in two of the three scenes that called for tears. I’ve seen him pull out good performances in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I think this shows he’s just not capable of a truly great role at this point in his life. On the other hand, Ewan was so skilled that he might deserve an award nomination, though probably not great enough to beat out everyone else for a win.
Witty dialogue and transitions combined with a few great side characters – the cellmate neighbor who delivers letters was hilarious – make for plenty of funny moments in the first hour. From here is where the jail escape schemes rush by in quick repetition, showing how sly Steven Russell must have been in real life. Each stunt could easily be extended into a full TV episode or film plot, and it’s cool that we get more than we hoped for in this regard.
I could see some complaining that the movie didn’t know if it wanted to be an escape story or a romance story, but I think the balance was done well even if it’s nowhere as powerful as Catch Me If You Can. I think the main thing that keeps this movie and Catch Me If You Can separated by such a big gap is that Phillip Morris mostly only has funny scenes and sad scenes, with not much middle ground in between. A few more laid back moments where we see McGregor when he's not smitten or angry at Carrey could have helped.
Despite not needing impressive cinematic stunts in a movie like this, there are a few worth mentioning. The car crash scene was so realistically done that I actually jumped a bit in my seat, and a later 360 degree camera pan transition while driving was so cool that it makes me wonder why I don’t see it used in more movies.
Aside from the powerful McGregor acting scenes that overshadow Carrey’s skills, the only thing I can think that would turn people away from seeing this are the occasional graphic gay sex scene. It’s usually not so much what we see, but more of how much we hear. For most of the movie it felt right that a movie about two gay men doesn’t shy away from the reality of their relationship – and it’s cool how a decade ago two men kissing in a movie was almost unheard of but now feels mostly normal – but there were a few shock value sex scenes that weren’t really necessary.
Overall Score: 7.60 – Good. (7s are good, but not great. These films often have a stereotypical plot or are great movies that have a few minor flaws. Fans of this movie’s genre might love it, but others will still enjoy seeing it in theaters.)
