The Quarantine Stream: Let ‘The Cable Guy’ Make You A Preferred Customer Again
(Welcome toThe Quarantine Stream, a new series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)The Movie:The Cable GuyWhere You Can Stream It:Amazon PrimeThe Pitch: Oddball cable installer Chip Douglas (Jim Carrey) attempts to strike up a friendship with customer Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) by offering him premium channels at no cost. When Steven rebuffs Chip’s frequent need for companionship, Chip goes from a mildly eccentric acquaintance to a full-fledged psycho stalker. Though it’s increasingly apparent to Steven that the cable guy is dangerous, convincing his friends, family and the authorities of that isn’t so easyWhy It’s Essential Viewing: The zany Jim Carrey of the 90s recently made a resurgence as Dr. Robotnik inSonic the Hedgehog, and he’s been giving us the darker side of comedy withKiddingon Showtime. But maybe you’d like to go back to a time when Jim Carrey’s darker tendencies first mixed with his over-the-top comedic antics from moviesAce Ventura: Pet DetectiveandThe Mask. Look no further thanThe Cable Guy,the sophomore feature from directorBen Stillerwith the sole screenplay written byLou Holtz Jr., and a lot more famous faces than you probably remember.The Cable Guyarrived at the height of Jim Carrey’s fame in the mid 90s, right betweenBatman ForeverandLiar Liar. Carrey was known as the funnyman with the rubber face, always giving the maximum amount of energy to comedic roles that were overacted in the best way possible. So his biggest fans weren’t expecting him to take this twisted turn inThe Cable Guywhere he basically gets a strange bro version ofSingle White Female. This performance showed how Carrey could make his own wackiness a little creepy and unnerving, and it broadened his horizons as an actor, even if some audiences walked away disappointed because it wasn’t his usual schtick.
But Carrey isn’t the only one who makes this worth watching. Matthew Broderick, who was once the face of carefree fun inFerris Bueller’s Day Offmakes for the perfect hapless ex-boyfriend. Broderick’s descent into paranoid madness in the wake of his friends and family embracing Carrey’s deceptively friendly Cable Guy Who Is Never Really Named is one of only a few good big screen roles in the 90s, along withThe Lion KingandElection.
The rest of the supporting cast is filled out with the likes ofLeslie Mannas Matthew Broderick’s ex-girlfriend,George SegalandDiane Bakeras his parents, Jack Black as his good friend,Owen Wilsonin one of his early douchebag roles, and even some bit parts forJaneane Garofalo, Andy Dick, David CrossandKyle Gass. And let’s not forget Ben Stiller in a recurring side plot unfolding on TV as twin brothers Sam and Stan Sweet, one dead and one on trial for murdering the other, modeled after the real life Menendez Brotherswho captured headlines and audiences in a sensationalized trial.
That latter part creates a rather hamfisted moral that is anything but subtle, but the movie overall isn’t subtle either, so it all works pretty well. Even the end leans into the camp of it all by giving a kind ofTwilight Zoneconclusion with a fun twist that takes us right back to the beginning of a new story. All-in-all it’s a truly unique entry in the careers of Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick, and it deserves to be talked about and remembered nearly 25 years later.
