Just to get the confusion out of the way: The love object in "I Love You Phillip Morris" is not America's leading tobacco company. That would be "Philip" with just one "l."
Rather, this Morris is a Southern prison inmate played by a blond-dyed Ewan McGregor, and the person who loves him is a fellow convict - a con man played by Jim Carrey.
Over the course of this odd-toned but ultimately sweet film, Carrey's Steven Russell will commit some daring and foolhardy crimes in order to be near Phillip. Unbelievably, Russell's felonies (ranging from the theft of millions and the impersonation of a lawyer to arranged prison beatings and an increasingly bold series of jailbreaks) are all true: The man Carrey portrays is currently paying for them in a Texas prison.
Whether Russell really did these things just for Morris, though, is more debatable. It's clear from the beginning that truth-telling just isn't in the man's nature, and love simply supplied a humanizing excuse for his pathology. But even though the film's tone is arch, trading in exaggerated visions of gay flamboyance and a general aversion to the dark consequences of Russell's actions, it does eventually make a good case for the authenticity of the swindler's love. To the degree he's capable of caring for someone other than himself, that is.
The movie is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the writers of "Bad Santa," and the deeply nasty humor of that film surfaces here only when matched by a similarly extreme (if winking) sentimentality.
See, for instance, the scene in which the young lovers bribe the enormous, profane black man in the next cell (reminiscent of the tiny, profane black man who brought a race-baiting edge to "Santa") to weather a torrent of physical abuse from jailers in order to play a Johnny Mathis tune while they slow-dance.
The two do more than slow-dance here, and although "Morris" isn't sexually graphic enough to exceed an R rating, it's explicit enough to be very off-putting to a fair portion of the moviegoers who might be drawn by its A-list stars
At the same time, gay and gay-friendly audiences might have their own difficulties with the film, which could be accused of linking homosexual monogamy to crime and deceit.
Ultimately, though, the movie is too likably goofy to be read that way - a mildly campy romance by way of "Catch Me If You Can."
It alienates plenty of folks along the way to its not-quite-happily-ever-after, but not nearly as many as you might have expected if you heard that a jailhouse romance was being crafted by the men who made Billy Bob Thornton do such foul things in a Santa Claus outfit a few years back.
"I Love You Phillip Morris"
Our grade: B
Genres: Drama, Romantic Comedy
Running Time: 98 min
MPAA rating: R (Adult Language, Adult Situations)
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