In the comedy, Jim Carrey plays a mild-mannered Rhode Island cop named Charlie. He actively avoids confrontation with his new wife (Traylor Howard), the midget limo driver she runs off with on their wedding day, and the community at large. Charlie is the guy everyone takes advantage of because they know he will do nothing about it. One day, all the rage boils up a little too far and he develops a split personality, the other half being a foul-tempered bully who calls himself Hank. Hank takes no guff from anybody. He is rude, abusive, and vengeful. Charlie is eventually given a diagnosis of "advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage." Medication helps keep Hank in his box, but it must be taken every six hours.

Meanwhile, Charlie is assigned to transport an imperiled young woman named Irene (Renee Zellweger) from Rhode Island to New York. She's wanted by some bad guys who are involved in an illegal scheme between the Environmental Protection Agency and a golf course. (I never did figure out what that was all about.) As the bad guys try to catch up with Irene, the earnest cop flip-flops between personalities. Nice-guy Charlie starts to fall in love with the beautiful woman he is trying to protect, whereas the nasty Hank just wants to get her into bed. For her part, Irene is kind of sweet on Charlie as well, but every time she starts to express her feelings, Hank shows up. Eventually Charlie must stand up for himself - and to himself - to get rid of his alter ego.

The story in Me, Myself & Irene is often kind of stupid. I never understood why the bad guys were chasing Irene or what the conspiracy was. There's Something About Mary and Kingpin both had solid, well-constructed stories that featured fully-developed characters. This one has a muddled plot and only two characters with any kind of depth (both played by Carrey; Zellweger, a terrific actress, looks great but is underused). Basically, the plot is just a hook on which to hang a lot of jokes about multiple personalities.

The abusive Hank wrestles a cow to the ground in Me, Myself & Irene

On the other hand, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. The gross-out humor at which the Farrelly Brothers (and Jim Carrey) excel is on full display. Remember the hair gel scene in There's Something About Mary? Most of the gags in this film start at that level and go up (or should I say, down?). The film has an outrageous scene with a chicken that showed me something I had never seen in a movie before. That got a big laugh, as did the initial emergence of Hank, who immediately takes revenge on nearly everyone who has ever wronged him. There's also a sequence involving a woman breast-feeding that nearly had me rolling on the floor. And the way Hank handles a dog who poops in his yard every day is priceless. After a while, I just ignored the lame story and enjoyed the humor. Carrey is fascinating in his duel role, reminding me of Steve Martin in All of Me. Not many people can pull off something so outlandish, so over-the-top. If the Farrelly Brothers haven't devised their best story, at least they've conceived enough gloriously sick gags to allow Carrey to run wild.

Me, Myself & Irene made me laugh often and hard. If you sit all the way through the end credits, there's an additional scene that ties up one final loose end. I walked into the theater expecting to be grossed out, offended, and tickled. If nothing else, the movie succeeds beautifully on that criteria and so I have to give it a rave review.

( 1/2 out of four)

Me, Myself & Irene is rated R for sexual content, crude humor, strong language and some violence. The running time is 1 hour and 56 minutes.