I have never been that enamoured of Jim Carey, in fact he has always got right on my wick. But, I would that say for the film , I Love You Phillip Morris, he is absolutely excellent. The true story of Steven Russell (Carey) that begins as, Russell , a happily married a member of the local police force suffers a car accident that immediately provokes a spectacular reassessment of his life . He suddenly realizes he should not be married to a woman and is in fact a thoroughgoing homosexual and , as such, decides to live life to the full and a bit more – even if it means breaching the law.
Of course Mr Russell’s new, extravagant lifestyle entails mucho con and mucho fraud, that eventually provokes a lengthy stay in the State Pen where he meets the sensitive and gentle Phillip Morris (Ewan Mc Gregor). Thus, his utter infatuation with Phillip and his utopian dream of building a life together with the man prompts Steven to attempt, and often accomplish, one utterly ridiculously baffling and audacious con after the next until his exploits hit the record books.
A man known as ‘Houdini’, his IQ was measured at 163, and had at least 14 known aliases during his escapes and masqueraded as among others, a judge, a physician, a police officer, a lawyer and a handyman. In 1996, while in Harris County Jail (Texas), Russell impersonated a judge and arranged for his own bond to be decreased from $900,000 to $45,000, which he immediately posted. Arrested 10 days later in Florida he was sent back to Texas and started taking prison art classes. Each time he attended a session, he snatched a green magic marker, and having sussed that all the medics wore green, dyed his white prison uniform said colour and walked out the door disguised as a doctor.
In 1998, he was nicked again and appeared at the Harris County Jail and was sentenced to a mighty 45-years for stealing $800,000 from a Houston company that manages physicians’ finances with an added plus 20 years for the previous escape.
Looking at 65 years in the pokey he, in 1998, read up on the ailments of AIDS and started taking laxatives to make it seem as if he suffered from the disease.
He then swiped a prison typewriter and forged a letter that stated that he suffered from the ailment and secured a ‘special needs parole’ to a Houston hospital, posed as a doctor who claimed that he, Russell, had died of AIDS and walked away free. Subsequently on March 20, 1998, he posed as a Virginia millionaire and tried to take a $75,000 loan from a bank and when the bank officials smelled a rat, he feigned a heart attack and was taken to hospital where he impersonated an FBI guard and was off again.
He was eventually apprehended in Fort Lauderdale and sent back to Texas and is now serving a 44 year sentence.
A remarkable film about a remarkable man, I loved every minute of it.
I Love You Phillip Morris is now available to rent or buy on DVD.
