As always with the Farrelly brothers (Bobby, Peter), the dispiriting thing is not that their movie is never amusing, but that it's amusing once in a while. The rest of the time is a damn shame. The high concept (as they call these things in the trade), of a Rhode Island state trooper whose lifelong doormat personality splits off into a part-time psycho personality, creates ample Doctor-Jekyll-and-Mister-Hyde latitude (or Professor-Klump-and-Buddy-Love latitude) for Jim Carrey to shore up his position as the Jerry Lewis of the Nine -- oops, the Jerry Lewis of the Noughts. Among the amusing notions on parade are the speeded-up Dirty Harry whisper of the alternate personality, his bob-and-weave boxing technique in combative mode, the rubber-mouse squeaky whistle through his pulverized nose (his increased aggression is unaccompanied by increased prowess), and even, in spite of the racial stereotyping, his roly-poly black-skinned triplets, who've inherited their brains from their biological father, a Mensa midget, and acquired their vocabulary not from either father but from Richard Pryor and Chris Rock ("Enrico Fermi'd roll over in his motherfucking grave"). Not exactly amusing, but vaguely impressive, if ultimately wasteful, is the participation of Renée Zellweger as the romantic interest: she's a better actress than customary in a Carrey and/or Farrelly comedy, but then again Jerry Lewis never had need of an Eva Marie Saint or a Shirley Knight. On the unamusing side, the overloaded side, the perilously close to capsizing side, there are such benign transgressions as the folksy narration by Rex Allen, Jr. (stolen, without also stealing the point of it, from the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski), and the Farrellys' congenital negligence as to the look of their movies, the washed-out color, the junky compositions. Weighing more heavily on that side, however, are the escalating attempts at what has come to be known as gross-out humor. To try to top oneself is always a bad idea for a quote-unquote artist, even when there is no question of bad taste. (E.g., the 007 series.) To try to "outgross" oneself -- though of course it will mean something quite different, something quite good, to a Hollywood bookkeeper -- is two bads too many. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd