Ed's Review Dot Com

Europa Corp., Mad Chance

Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Antoni Corone, Brennan Brown, Michael Mandel, Annie Golden

Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is a Texas Cop and an upstanding Christian citizen with a wife and a good life. But his biggest pain in life is that he’s adopted. Well, that and he is gay. A near death experience teaches him to live the life that he wants, so he changes his whole life around and announces that he is gay. But he soon finds that living a lavish gay lifestyle is expensive, so he starts pulling scams and crimes and becomes an accomplished liar. Naturally he winds up in prison where he meets his cell mate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) who is the love of his life. So Steven begins a life built around his only true love. This requires more crimes and more scams and more lies and an extremely accomplished skill at breaking out of prison. Steven is a master of it.

This is once again based on a real fellow in Texas. What is it this month with every DVD being a “true story”? Maybe Hollywood has no imagination left and relies now on the “life is stranger than fiction” motto. Well in this case it most certainly is.

I didn’t expect this to be a very good film and I figured Jim Carrey would be pretty lame in a drama. Well I was wrong on several counts. This is an extremely funny film. Every time you figure Steve out, he does something even more outrageous than before. Ewan McGregor is very good in his role as a shy unassuming gay guy who keeps getting suckered into Steve’s outrageous schemes. But I was truly surprised at how funny it was, even though the subject was a true life drama. It fired on all cylinders and was very enjoyable. I was very pleasantly surprised by it. It’s rated R and for pretty good reason, so keep the younger folks away, but it’s good fun, more like a Saturday Night Live skit than a raunchy comedy. It’s in pretty good taste considering the subject matter and the directors did an excellent job in keeping this constantly moving. Surprise after surprise occurs, and to imagine that this is a real story, and as the final credits point out, this guy had to have been a major embarrassment to the Texas government and then Governor George W. Bush. The finally took some really drastic measures to make sure this guy is watched 24X7, as not since Woody Allen in “Take the Money and Run” has there been a funnier prison escape movie. That one is a classic and if you’ve never seen it, track it down. It’s hysterical. But this one is also really good and tons of laughs. I recommend I Love You Phillip Morris! And be sure to watch the deleted scenes on the DVD. They add a lot.

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