The movie is based on a real life con artist and sociopathic genius named Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey), who, aside from falling in love with an impossibly sweet, doe-eyed man named Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) in prison, managed to escape various state penitentiaries five unbelievable times before receiving an unprecedented 144 year prison sentence for being too much of an embarrassment for the Texas correctional system. In his criminal pursuits he successfully impersonated doctors, judges, maintenance workers, cops and lawyers and also became the CFO of a corporation he knew nothing about, managing to embezzle thousands of dollars from it without having any education in finances. He's pretty much the most fascinating man alive. The Dos Equis guy read his Wikipedia page and then just killed himself, basically.

The movie reportedly heightens some of the story for comedic effect, but the more I read about the real guy, the more my mind is blown by how true the incredible events in I Love You, Phillip Morris are, and though the movie is a bit all over the place and oddly edited in parts (likely due to its hasty re-editing), it really is hysterically funny throughout. I enjoyed it on many levels, from Jim Carrey's perfectly maniacal, while still being reined-in performance, to Ewan McGregor's endearing, naive romantic Phillip Morris. Honestly, though these actors are playing farcical versions of people in a cartoonish landscape, they have genuine chemistry together, and it's not hard to buy their romance.

Bad Santa writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa wrote and directed Phillip Morris, so there's also a generous assault of awesomely inappropriate humor (including the greatest AIDS joke ever unfolded) and a lot of creative foul language ("I ain't no DHL mothafucka!" is the underappreciated quote of December, I tell you), and the majority of it really works. Though if you're seeing it solely because of how scandalous the controversy surrounding it makes it appear to be, you're going to be disappointed. Aside from that AIDS joke, there's just kind of a sweet romance between two male felons and a couple sex scenes with no nudity, and at this point you can see worse than that in a Family Guy episode on any given week. I'm not saying go see this with your grandmother, I'm just saying go see this, but with appropriate expectations.

Did you see I Love You, Phillip Morris? Tell us what you thought, then see what else is coming out soon with our end of the year movie guide!