The movie is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the creative team that brought "Bad Santa" to the big screen. So that tells you what level of humor to expect.
"I Love You Phillip Morris" stars Jim Carrey in a somewhat true story about a Christian family values guy who decides to come out of the closet afer a near-fatal auto accident. In order to accomodate his lavish new lifestyle, the ex-cop becomes a scam artist. He's arrested and sent to prison, where he falls madly in love with his cellmate, played by Ewan McGregor. After Carrey's sweetheart is released from the pen, our hero embarks on a series of harebrained (and often successful) escape attempts in his quest to reunite with McGregor. Below are snippets from some early reviews I found...
Eric Kohn, Moving Picture Magazine: Fascinatingly muddled, I Love You Phillip Morris falls into the trappings of a crude parody. The "Bad Santa" scribes make their directorial debut with the same mixture of lewd charm and underlying character complexity of that subversive holiday hit, but their intentions lie all across the map... Throughout the movie, Steven continually slips away from prison to reunite with his partner, pulling a number of amusing tricks that suggest Chaplin by way of James Bond. But Carrey's performance runs from wild slapstick to puppy-eyed sentimentalism, often making it tough to discern the tone of any given scene. However, because of this perpetual inconsistency, Philip Morris remains a unique oddity: fascinating to watch and hard to forget, but not so great in retrospect.
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon: You could well ask what big stars like Carrey and McGregor are doing at the alleged hotbed of independent film in the first place, and perhaps the peculiar but powerful sexual chemistry between them in I Love You Phillip Morris is one answer to the question. Sure, there have been plenty of straight-playing-gay movies by now, but I can't think of another one that strives to be so trashy and hot.
Seth on The Defamer: (The) genre-bending script manages the seemingly impossible, ably juggling madcap Coensian crime farce, raunch comedy (with Leslie Mann playing Russell's dumbfounded ex-wife for good measure), and a matter-of-fact gay love story as poignant and frank as anything we found in Milk. No, the camera does not cut away from their passionate kisses or acts of fellative love...
Josh Tyler, Cinema Blend: Carrey works surprisingly well as Steven, though perhaps it’s only because Steven’s entire life is one big performance. Jim’s playing a guy playing a guy, and when he can’t help but fall into one of those wacky, unrealistic facial expressions it works as a reminder that everything we see of Steven is merely some sort of artificially created character. His relationship with Ewan works as well, though much of their life together seems to exist primarily to get guy on guy laughs.
At this point in time, the movie hasn't found a US distributor. With a big star like Jim Carrey in the title role, that also tells you something. And in case you haven't seen the trailer yet ...
Harmless fun? Or another ghastly experience like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry?"





