From gentle to mental
Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carrey), is an 18-year veteran of the Rhode Island State Police trooper who has been taken advantage of by people throughout his life. Immediately after his marriage, his shrewd wife, Layla (Traylor Howard), cheats on him with a violatle dwarf limosine driver, named Shonté (Tony Cox), who, like Layla, is a member of Mensa. Although Charlie's friends try informing him of his wife's infidelity, he still denies the possibility. Layla eventually runs off with Shonté; leaving Charlie to raise three black sons that are the products of Layla's adulterous affair with the limo driver. Charlie never sees his wife ever again. His wife affair and abandonment leaves Charlie so emotionally damaged to such the extent that he lets himself be verbaly and physically abused by others. Despite him being a police officer, all his neighbors and other citizens reject his authority with open scorn because they see him as a pushover as well as a weak and ineffective person.Flashing forward 15 years, Charlie continues to raise and spoil his three illigimate African-American sons Jamal (Anthony Anderson), Lee Harvey (Mongo Brownlee) and Shonté Jr. (Jerod Mixon), all of whom have become overweight from poor and unbalanced diets as well as use vulger and profane language from being allowed to watch foul-mouthed stand-up comedien movies from Richard Pryor to Chris Rock. Yet, all people in town continue to treat Charlie with scorn and abuse; his own neighbor steals his newspaper and allows his pet dog to deficate on the front lawn of his house; a little girl curses and insults him; a mutual friend continues to illegaly park his car and tear up parking tickets that Charlie gives him. Every townsperson on the street that Charlie interacts with takes advantage of his kind personality to further abuse him. After all the continous abuse and disrespect, Charlie's anger builds up, but he continues to keep it repressed until suddenly after a shrewd "soccer mom" delibrately cuts in front of him at a supermarket line, Charlie suddenly developes a rude, foul-mouthed, violent split personality named Hank. Within minutes, "Hank" gets revenge against all the people that have done "Charlie" wrong until he gets arrested by his own police co-workers. At the urging of his boss Colonel Partington (Robert Forester), Charlie visits a psychiatrist who tells him that his alter-ego Hank was created by decades of repressed anger and frustration, stemming from his wife's abandonment to his friends and neighbors scorning him, which has led to "advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage."The psychiatrist prescribes him a medicine to keep his double personality suppressed. Believing that Charlie needs a vacation, Col. Partington tells him to escort a woman named Irene Waters (Renée Zellweger) to Massena, New York because it was reported that she committed a hit and run that was actually committed by Dickie (Daniel Greene), Irene's partner. When some hit men arrive with a contract on Irene's life, Charlie agrees to help her escape, while two United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agents are killed by the hit men. Charlie leaves his medicine behind, causing his alter ego, Hank, to surface any time he wants.Two FBI agents, Agent Boshane (Richard Jenkins) and Agent Peterson (Zen Gesner), suspect that Charlie is responsible for the assassination of the two EPA agents. While pretending to work with the police to find their father, Charlie's three sons throw the police off their father's trail, and they proceed to steal a police helicopter to get to Charlie before the police.Meanwhile, Dickie orders some corrupt agents to kill both Charlie and Irene to prevent them from testifying against the EPA where Irene used to work for on dirty dealings. After they fail, Dickie decides to settle the matter himself. During the confrontation with Dickie, Charlie manages to eliminate the alternate personality, Hank. Eventually, he manages to stop Dickie, and put an end to the corruption. With Hank gone, and all the members of the conspiracy behind bars, the film ends Irene's departure. Charlie, however, makes a road block and arrests her in order to surprise her with a marriage proposal, which she accepts.After the credits roll, there is an additional scene in which Charlie, Irene, the boys and waiter Whitey try to find Charlie's severed thumb which was blasted into a river earlier, but to no avail.
Orig. title:
Me, Myself & Irene / Me, Myself and Irene
Score: 65 %
Broadcasted on: