Review: I Love You Phillip Morris
The notorious con artist Steven Russell has been both amazingly corrupt and amazingly clever. An expert at fraud and embezzlement, he masterminded many astonishing scams and escaped from prison several times. Known for his high IQ and impersonation skills, he outwitted corporate executives, bank officials, and law enforcement alike, conning his way into high-level jobs as easily as he conned his way out of prison cells.
Given Russell's notoriety and anti-hero fame, as detailed in the book by Houston journalist Steve McVicker, a movie about his life is almost inevitable. His criminal escapades and charming rogue persona are perfect fodder for a cinematic treatment. That film is I Love You Phillip Morris, a tragicomic romp written and directed by Bad Santa writers John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. While entertaining, the movie isn't quite as smart or clever as its subject.
Opening on Friday in Austin, I Love You Phillip Morris is really two stories: one chronicling Russell's life of deception and the other exploring his relationship with the titular Morris, a lover whom Russell met in a Texas jail. (The title may be misleading, as the film has no connection to the tobacco company with the same name.) I Love You Phillip Morris is ambitious in scope, equal parts true-crime caper film, love story and commentary about homophobia.
The film opens as Russell (Jim Carrey) is on his deathbed, recalling events that led him there. In flashback, we learn about Russell's childhood (he is adopted by a couple in New York) and early adult life in Georgia, where he is a police officer and a churchgoing family man. While serving on the police force, he uses various law enforcement database resources to find his birth mother, developing research skills that would serve him well in his later life of crime.
The family later moves to Texas, where the totally unqualified Russell cons his way into a management job in a food services company. By now, he is living a lie both professionally and personally, posing as an outwardly happy married man and father while having secret liaisons with male lovers. A life-changing incident prompts him to end the charade, come out to his wife (Leslie Mann) and move to Miami, where he finds a boyfriend and lives the high life.
Russell resorts to credit card and insurance fraud to pay for his new bling-centric lifestyle, and soon enough he finds himself in a Texas prison, where he meets fellow convict Morris (Ewan McGregor). Instantly smitten, Russell goes to great lengths to ensure that the two can be together both inside and outside the lockup.
From this point, the story is one of outrageous criminal behavior motivated by greed and true love. The ever-clever and ever-lovelorn Russell is repeatedly incarcerated, but easily frees himself via various scams and impersonations. He also frees Morris by pretending to be his lawyer. Using fake credentials, Russell talks his way into a job as CFO of a company that manages physicians' finances; not satisfied with his mere executive salary, he also embezzles huge amounts of money from his employer. The law ultimately catches up with him again, although the film hints that we may not have seen the last of Steven Russell.
To its credit, I Love You Phillip Morris is often very funny and moves along so briskly that there is little time to dwell on its flaws. Unfortunately, these flaws are many, and in the end the film didn't really work for me. I Love You Phillip Morris tries to be too many things -- crime story, love story, comedy, tragedy and social commentary -- and therefore does only a so-so job at being any of them. For example, there are some darkly hilarious one-liners, as when Russell arranges the brutal beating of an inmate who's been bothering Morris. Morris's reaction? "That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me." But some of the comedy seems forced, relying less on wit than on sight gags and Carrey's penchant for rubber-faced mugging.
Russell's unbelievable-but-true scams make for a rollicking tale of criminal derring-do. But the 100-minute I Love You Phillip Morris condenses and rearranges some key elements of Russell's real-life story, and the resulting plot barely explains some of the cons and is sometimes a bit confusing. Also, the film isn't gritty or gripping enough to make its tragic elements work; the story is too superficial and the tone too emotionally flat to make us care much when characters suffer.
Another problem with I Love You Phillip Morris is that Carrey is mostly miscast. I respect Carrey's comic talents, at least when they're put to good use in the right kind of goofball comedy. He's also displayed his more nuanced dramatic chops in films like The Truman Show. But Carrey simply isn't the right actor to play a hardened criminal like Russell, especially when the script calls for so many moments of very dark humor or poignant drama. Although Carrey is appropriately subdued when needed, he's just too naturally goofy to be convincing as a lifetime con artist and thief who, after all, is a menace to society. Also, Carrey's Russell has zero romantic chemistry with McGregor's completely underwritten Morris. On the other hand, McGregor is much better as Morris, doing the best he can with a character who's more of a prop than a person.
That said, you can do far worse than I Love You Phillip Morris for good-natured caper film diversion. It aspires to be better than it is and should be far more polished and original, but it's never dull. There are enough funny moments -- and Russell surprises us often enough with his astounding scams -- to make it a very watchable film, if not a great one.
Texas Connections: I Love You Phillip Morris is set mostly in Texas, where Russell committed many of his crimes. However, it was filmed in California, Florida and Louisiana. The movie is based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Houston journalist Steve McVicker.
For a slightly different take on this movie, read Jette's review from the film's Austin Film Festival screening, over at Cinematical.