The Cable Guy (1996) Storyline and Short Reviews

A funny comedy with a classic storyline, The Cable Guy, is a cult film directed by Ben Stiller. Starring Matthew Broderick, Jenna Fischer, and Alan Arkin, the film depicts a handyman (Broderick) who gets himself in trouble when he has to repair a cable TV connection to his own house while on vacation. The plot of the movie revolves around how he manages to get his family out of the predicament they find themselves in.

All About Of The Cable Guy (1996) Storyline and Short Reviews

Plot

He moved into an apartment after he didn’t get married to his girlfriend, Robin Harris. Steven bribes cable installer Ernie “Chip” Douglas to give him free movie channels when his friend Rick tells him to. When Chip asks Steven to hang out with him the next day, Steven agrees.

Chip then makes him one of his “preferred customers.” Chip takes Steven to the city’s main satellite dish, where he tells Steven about how he was raised by TV because his mother was always away. Chip soon shows that he’s nosy when he interrupts a basketball game between Steven and his friends and leaves a lot of messages on Steven’s answer machine. It was at Medieval Times when Chip and Steven had a fight.

Steven found a home theater system in his living room that Chip had put there for him to thank him for his friendship. Steven doesn’t want the gift, but he agrees to host a party for Chip’s other best customers before he gets the system back. He had hired her just for him. The next morning Chip tells him that she was a prostitute who had been hired just for Steven. Steven is angry when he learns this. He throws Chip out of his apartment.

Robin has a new boyfriend, so Chip goes to see her. An impersonator of Chip severely beats the man and tells him to stay away from Robin. Later, he gives Robin a new cable, saying it was a gift from Steven. After Robin and Steven broke up, she decided to get back together again. But when Chip tells Steven that he helped Steven get back together with Robin, Steven politely ends their friendship.

A heartbroken Chip decides to do a series of things to get back at them. He gets Steven arrested for having stolen goods and makes fun of him through a window in prison. Chip and his family and Robin invite Steven to dinner after he is released on bail. Steven is even more humiliated. When the game Password was made sexual, Steven berates Chip in front of everyone. He then punches him.

Steven is fired from his job the next day because Chip sends a private conversation that Steven had with his boss, in which he insults him, to the company’s computers.

The Climax of the Movie the Cable Guy (1996)

While on vacation in his hometown, the Cable Guy (Matthew Broderick) is forced to repair a cable TV connection to his house. His wife (Jenna Fischer), kids (Alan Arkin and Tom Hanks), an old neighbor (Carolyn Hennesy) are all stranded inside as he works tirelessly outside.

Ultimately, they all manage to escape without too much trouble. The cable guy film taps into our frustrations with everyday life; we all get into situations like the Cable Guy, but how many of us actually find a way out?

Stiller delivers what you’d expect from a comedy; witty jokes and scenarios. The film is evident by people’s gags when they’re trapped in close proximity with others within confined spaces such as an elevator, etc. It’s basically one continuous gag during which there are numerous scenes where Broderick must work even though he doesn’t want to.

The Cable Guy stars Matthew Broderick and is directed by Ben Stiller, who previously has acted in comedies such as The Cider House Rules (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). One of us thought he was watching a caper movie, but then there were all these digs at people messing with cable television connections while they’re out of town!!! See this gem again, and it’s worth it!!

The Story Behind The Cable Guy (1996) Movie

 

The Cable Guy is a 1996 American screwball comedy film written and directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Matthew Broderick as an over-the-hill cable TV installer who must repair a connection to his home while on vacation with his family. The predicament of being trapped in close proximity with others (in this case, the wife and kids) provides many comedic moments.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m getting on an airplane (or taking any other means of transportation), and I see a commercial or movie that has some stupid guy in it crowded together somewhere trying to get free, it makes me laugh.

Movie Cast And Characters

Jim Carrey

 

Jim Carrey is a comic actor who started his career with the movie The Cable Guy in 1996. Jim Carrey is known for his roles in movies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, and The Mask. In this movie, Jim Carrey plays the role of a cable installer named Nick. He has to work hard to make people happy, as he has a special gift that helps him to connect anything to anything else.

Matthew Broderick

Matthew Broderick is a well-known actor who has appeared in many movies over the years. He started his career in the 1980s with roles in movies like War of the Worlds, Terms of Endearment, and Young Sherlock Holmes. In The Cable Guy, Matthew Broderick plays the role of Jim Carrey’s father. He is supportive and helpful to his son as they try to get back home from vacation.

Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller is a character that people would remember for his movie, The Cable Guy. It was a successful movie in 1996, with a storyline which has some funny moments. It tells the story of a man who works in a cable company, who finds out that he has to come to work one day when he is not scheduled to. He tries to deal with his boss and the whole situation.

Leslie Mann

Leslie Mann is an actress who has appeared in a number of successful movies. She started her career in the 1980s, appearing in movies like Romancing the Stone and Pretty Woman. In The Cable Guy, Leslie Mann plays the role of Nick’s wife. She is supportive and tries to help him with his cable installation job.

Jack Black

 

Jack Black is an actor who started his career in the 1990s. He has appeared in a number of successful movies, including Kissing Jessica Stein and School of Rock. In The Cable Guy, Jack Black plays the role of Vince Giuliano, one of Jim Carrey’s friends. He helps him with his cable installation job, and they have some funny moments together along the way.

Awards

The Cable Guy was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Screenplay. It also got nominated for a BAFTA Award but lost in the category of Best Film. It got recognized by the Golden Globes, as well. It received two MTV Movie Awards nominations, and it was equally successful in both categories.

Box office

The Cable Guy made an estimated $22 million in the U.S. alone when it was released there in 1994. The worldwide box office for this film is approximately $91 million to date, and that’s good enough for its status as a successful movie! It reached the highest point of all time for any movies released exactly one year after their release dates, which puts it among some great films such as Gattaca, The Matrix and Pulp Fiction.

The Ending Of The Cable Guy (1996)

Chip was fired from the cable company for stalking customers, and he used the names of TV characters as aliases, like Chip and Ernie Douglas from My Three Sons and Larry Tate from Bewitched. Rick did this at Steven’s request. During the evening, Steve gets a call from Chip. He says that he will see Robin.

Before Steven goes to Robin’s empty apartment, he finds them at the satellite dish. Chip holds Robin hostage in a rainstorm. After a fight and a chase, Steven is able to save Robin and fight Chip. Chip says sorry to Steven when the police show up. Chip said that he had to “kill the babysitter” to stop others from becoming like him, so he dived backward from the top of a ladder above the satellite dish.

He fell on the dish and knocked out the TV signal in the whole city. Before being taken away in a helicopter, Chip tells Steven goodbye. When one of the paramedics calls him “buddy,” Chip asks the paramedic if he is really his buddy. The paramedic says, “Yeah, sure you are,” which makes Chip smile deviously, implying that Chip is stalking the paramedic again.

The Cable Guy has a rather unusual ending. After it has been revealed that Vince Giuliano is an FBI agent, he arrests Jim Carrey and Leslie Mann’s character. They are both sent to prison, but they each have the opportunity to make amends for their past behavior. In the end, they get back together and live happily ever after, sort of! All jokes aside, The Cable Guy is a good comedy, and it’s always entertaining to watch!

Overall Reviews

Audience analysis

A lot of people think that The Cable Guy has a darker tone than most of Carrey’s other movies. A lot of people didn’t like Carrey’s new tone of voice. Some movie critics didn’t like it, either.

When you go to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a rating of 53%, with an average rating of 5.7/10. They say, “The Cable Guy’s dark wit and subversive wit are often—but not always—enough to fight off its frustratingly uneven storytelling.”

When you look at Metacritic, the movie has a score of 56 out of 100, based on reviews from 28 different people. On a scale of A to F, CinemaScore asked people to give the movie a grade of “C+.” The movie was on J. Hoberman’s list of the top 10 best of the year.

He put The Cable Guy on his list of the worst movies of 1996, but Gene Siskel disagreed. He called it “a very good movie. Carrey’s best since The Mask.” It was hard for Ebert to like the movie because he thought Carrey’s performance was weird and creepy, and he thought the movie was too dark for it to work.

Critic’s analysis

“The Cable Guy” is a dark and often disturbingly funny story about an outsized southern Californian named Vincent (Jim Carrey), who, after getting fired from his cable-TV company job and declaring bankruptcy, moves in with his parents and becomes a salesman for the company’s new high-tech line of products.

The movie also features Vince’s love interest, Cheryl (Leslie Mann), as well as co-workers Buddy (Michael Rooker) and Dennis (Will Ferrell). There were two extremes of reviewers regarding The Cable Guy.

Either they thought the movie was great or pitiful, but there wasn’t much in between because this is a comedy after all. Entertainment Weekly critic David Hiltbrand gives it an A-minus for “dark humor.”

He thinks that Carrey has done his best work here since In Living Color, and he says that “The Cable Guy” lives up to its title. Hiltbrand was impressed by the fact that this is Jim Carrey’s darkest role, and his performance won some very strong praise from reviewers who considered him as a benchmark of great comedic performances because many cannot compare, so everybody tries to be like Jim Carrey in terms of insane and hilarious comedy-acting.

Visual Effects Of The Cable Guy (1996)

The Cable Guy is one of the first examples of what’s called an HD movie. Many details were seen on screen because they look that good. It was also notable for a motion picture shot in high definition video specifically to show its evolution and technical advancement.

The most amazing effect was when everything started turning upside down; you could see all sides of whatever object(s) were being pictured at once after doing so, present in 3 dimensions.

Film reviewer Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and said that “The Cable Guy is as dark as most comedies get, with Jim Carrey turning down the hysterics a few notches to play another character: an anguished amnesiac who must be explained to at every turn.”

He adds, though there was some humor in this rambling film topically about cable TV installation during demolition by a chain- saw wielding maniac, that “the movie’s comic energy is in the details.”

The Acting Performance Of The Cable Guy (1996)

Jim Carrey gives an amazing performance as Nathan Fielder, a depressed and suicidal cable installer who is sent to a mental institution after developing amnesia. His only hope of ever recovering his memory is to be a “cable guy” at the mental hospital in order to make people laugh and bring them some happiness.

Critics found that he convincingly portrayed the character’s many moods and emotions, including those of both anger and sadness. They also thought that he was likable and amusing as the lead character all through.

The cable guy would go on to become one of Carrey’s more memorable roles (as seen in many interviews), and his great life at that time, leading up to its production, may have inspired him too.

Conclusion

The 1996 comedy-drama movie The Cable Guy is a modern cult classic that tells the story of Jim, a high-strung cable TV installer. A stalker, an ex-wife, and his own anxiety make his day worse than it needs to be. This story demonstrates how technology can affect people’s lives.

FAQs

1.What Happens in the Cable Guy?

Ans: In The Cable Guy, the main character, Jerry Seinfeld, tries to get cable TV installed in his apartment. He goes through many obstacles, including dealing with the landlord, the cable company, and the government.

2.What Was Wrong With the Cable Guy?

Ans: There is no one answer to this question as everyone has their own opinion. However, some common complaints about The Cable Guy include its crude humor, its use of profanity, and its stereotypical portrayal of the cable TV industry.

3.Was the Cable Guy a Flop?

Ans: No, The Cable Guy was not a flop. In fact, it was a very successful movie. It made over $200 million at the box office and received critical acclaim from both audiences and critics.

The Cable Guy is a comedy about Douglas Quaid (Jim Carrey), who becomes frustrated with the high cost of cable TV and decides to become his own cable TV provider. He makes homemade cables and then expands to provide services to other people in his town.

The Cable Guy was written and directed by Ben Stiller, and it features many well-known actors such as Jeff Goldblum, Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, etc.

4.Is the Cable Guy a Good Movie?

Ans: There is no one definitive answer to this question as everyone has their own opinion. However, some people may feel that The Cable Guy is a good movie because it is hilarious and entertaining.

5.Is the Cable Guy a Good Movie?

Ans:

1. The Cable Guy is a great movie that is funny, entertaining, and relevant to today’s society.
2. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who wants a good laugh and some entertainment.