Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
gross out comedy
directed by : Bobby Farrelly & Peter Farrelly
featuring : Jim Carrey - Renee Zellweger - Chris Cooper - Robert Forster - Richard Jenkins
running time : 1 hour 57 minutes
Six years after Dumb And Dumber, Jim Carrey reunited with Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly for this anarchic comedy with a hint of romance. Charlie (Carrey) is a good-natured Rhode Island state trooper who likes helping people. But years of internalizing his frustrations about his work and his family have caused Charlie to develop an alter ego: Hank, an abusive, violent, sexually compulsive police officer. Charlie can keep Hank at bay with medication, but just barely. When Irene (Renee Zellweger) finds herself in legal trouble through a series of misunderstandings involving her ex-boyfriend, Charlie must escort her on a long drive to New York for questioning. After Charlie loses his medication, he and Hank wind up vying for her affections: Charlie wants Irene to marry him, while Hank has more brutal intentions. Me, Myself And Irene also features Chris Cooper, Robert Forster, and Jessica Harper, as well as Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownless, and Jerod Mixon as Charlie's rotund, African-American sons.

The reunion of star Carrey with writer-director Farrelly brothers doesn't have the charm or zealous comic zing of the brothers' earlier work, but an inspired subplot involving three genius siblings does provide a generous dose of laughs. The Farrellys' previous films were breathless confections of non-stop sight gags, hilarious humiliations, and wildly inventive supporting characters. While Me, Myself & Irene contains the latter in the form of Anderson, Brownlee, and Mixon as delightfully foul-mouthed, roly-poly, egghead brothers, the film's pace is almost languid for a Farrelly Brothers production. The gags are fewer and farther between, and the use of a singing narrator (Rex Allen Jr.) so effective when used in the style of a Greek chorus in There's Something About Mary falls flat and becomes distracting. Often compared to the comic production team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, the Farrellys in actuality create much richer, deeper characters that are not simply a frame upon which to hang a series of jokes. Unfortunately, in the case of Me, Myself & Irene, the brothers have focused on their characters too much, to the detriment of the film's sense of humor.