I Love You Phillip Morris vs Bronson

   

 I Love You Phillip Morris is a movie about something that actually happened, to people who actually exist. And it is filmed, inexplicably, as if those things and people didn’t exist at all, or at least not in a way interesting enough to warrant producing a movie. Non-fiction stories can be told in a variety of styles, from the B-movie camp of Ed Wood to the heightened docudrama of Monster. The tone I Love You Phillip Morris seemingly aims for is the dark-humored sincerity of The Informant, but it doesn’t trust that we’ll go along with the life of crime and lies lived by the main character. So, they tilt towards sitcom and let Jim Carrey have his rubber-faced way with us. It’s not a bad performance, per se. Carrey is as game and inventive as ever. But for all the drama surrounding the release of I Love You Phillip Morris (it was delayed for over a year), I thought maybe it was a hard-to-market Jim Carrey movie, like Man on the Moon or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with Jim Carrey throwing away his bag of tricks in favor of a strong script. Too much of I Love You Phillip Morris is marred by what I call Jim Carrey Face. You’ve heard me talk about Keanu Face? Jim Carrey Face is the opposite.

Carrey plays Steven Russell, a regular, upstanding guy. He plays piano at church, works for the police department, bangs his wife missionary under the covers. And he’s gay. We know, because when Steven was a kid, he saw dicks in the clouds. And because when he gets into a terrible car accident and decides to live his life on his own terms, he screams “fag” a dozen times. And because once he’s out, he gets a designer makeover, a European boyfriend, and a tiny dog to walk while shopping. Oh, and because Jim Carrey has been saddled with the most duh-worthy expository narration, and does so in an over-the-top southern drawl. “Bee-yun gay is exx-pensive!” Morgan Freeman he’s not.

To foot the bill, Steven becomes a con man, stealing identities and forging credit. He gets busted and winds up in prison with Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor, who saves the movie. I get it: he’s basically off the hook from the start. Ewan McGregor is under no pressure to go on talk shows and sell this movie. Jay Leno probably doesn’t even know who he is. His name is not the one above the title that lines up investors and sponsors. He probably went on a motorcycle vacation when it came time for the press junkets. And for that reason, I suspect McGregor felt no responsibility to deliver any sort of “Ewan McGregor performance”, since the closest approximation of that I’ve ever seen is just a regular “good performance”. Phillip is in prison for insurance fraud, and is quiet, friendly and optimistic. In prison, I suppose Steven might be Phillip’s best prospect, but as they grew closer, I was worried that Steven would just scam him like he did everyone else. But he’s sincere in his love, just like the title says. It’s a relief, because Carrey and McGregor have genuine chemistry, allowing Carrey to enjoy the movie’s quieter moments too. Steven is able to get out of prison, and returns disguised as Phillip’s lawyer, to bust him out. They live happily, for a while, with Steven working as a fake investment attorney or whatever; he bilks the company out of millions, and goes back to prison. For the rest of the movie, I Love You Phillip Morris is just a series of scenes of Steven escaping and being recaptured. Time passes, Phillip slips out of jail, and the movie instantly cuts to him being shoved, screaming, into a cop car. Steven is undoubtedly a genius (Jim Carrey probably is too). Why not show us? If he’s such a brilliant conman, I’m not sure why the movie only contains his failures. One reason might be that I Love You Phillip Morris has no one working on his case. There’s no Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, or Tom Hanks in Catch Me If You Can, working diligently to bring Steven to justice. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa co-directed and co-wrote the movie, and seem dead-set on just showing us the sunny, funny side of the story. Guys, your main characters are guilty criminals in prison. There’s more than one side to the story. Why not show us some of it?

Near the end of I Love You Phillip Morris, Steven pulls a con that is confusing and nearly unconscionable. Any sympathies I had for Steven vanished when I realized the filmmakers had conned me as much as Steven was conning the penal system. The real Steven’s final fate is bleak, and I’d say, undeserved. As a movie character, his unhappy ending had little effect on me.

Bronson is another movie about a criminal who would be so much more successful in life if “Being in Prison” were a career option. As a young man, Michael Peterson robbed a post office for a small amount of money, and went to prison. Once there, he caused so much mayhem, he was practically never free again. You know what they do if you commit a crime even though you’re already in prison? Keep you. But Michael loved it. He loved being an in-house celebrity, and eventually, an actual celebrity. A stint in a mental facility showed him he liked the structure and predictability of prison, so he kept his behavior at the proper level of destruction to ensure no one would ever grant him freedom again, and they didn’t.

Bronson (Michael took the name Charles Bronson as some kind of badge of outlaw/superhero/celebrity) is also a true story, and messes with the standard style of most biographical movies. Even though it rarely leaves the confines of the prison, Bronson almost qualifies as an action movie. It’s full of fights (some clothed, some not), and as many quick-cuts as your average Jason Statham movie. Michael is obviously a sociopath, maybe a psychopath. His favorite activity is fighting prison guards in a bloody rage. We get only slight insight into his psyche when the character breaks the fourth wall and addresses us directly. At one point, he’s powdered like a clown and performing on a theater stage in front of a thrilled audience.

Tom Hardy plays Michael/Charles Bronson, and is funny, terrifying, and unrecognizable. Bronson’s closest film comparison might be Chopper, in which Eric Bana played another low-level crook who became low-level famous. Hardy was on the cusp of fame when he made Bronson (he’s since crossed it), which makes his risks in this movie all the more impressive and enjoyable. It’s unlikely that a bigger star might take a role so potentially unpleasant and dig in, despite our lack of sympathies. Bronson can be overly cynical and slick—it’s not about a stand-up comedian, it’s about a dangerous thug—but Hardy is undeniable. Here’s hoping his future movie requirements are of the Ewan McGregor brand. Maybe he should buy a motorcycle.

I Love You Phillip Morris: C+

Bronson: B