This week's book-to-movie adaptation, "I Love You Phillip Morris," is receiving great reviews -- especially for the performance of its star, Jim Carrey. The movie -- and book by Steve McVicker -- tell the true story of con man Steven Russell, who used his considerable intellect and chutzpah to break out of the Texas prison system four times. (The title refers to his love for a fellow convict, played in the movie by Ewan McGregor.) Some excerpts from reviews:
Rolling Stone -- OK, the movie, written and directed by John Requa and Glen Ficara of Bad Santa fame, is all over the place. But it's also outrageously funny.
Entertainment Weekly -- [ILYPM] pulls off ingenious schemes of its own: It dramatizes a highly unusual relationship — that's an understatement — between two men in which homosexual love and sex, ardently enacted on screen in a finely tuned tour-de-force interplay between two movie stars, is just another piece of the story. And it sustains a tone of compassionate hilarity in which oversize romantic gestures coexist with gigantic scams.
Village Voice -- [I]n ILYPM, Carrey finds the perfect outlet for his manic energy: Id and libido are fused, with Steven driven by actual lust and the unwavering—and completely believable—determination to provide for his fragile boyfriend.
Associated Press -- Jim Carrey gets to show off the best of what he can do in "I Love You Phillip Morris," both the physical comedy he made his name on and the unexpected tenderness that has crept into his later, more dramatic work.