I’d like to be the first to say that Man
of the House is a classic of comedic film, that it makes star Tommy
Lee Jones
an early front-runner for his second Oscar next year.
I’d
like to say it. But it would be wrong. So
very, very wrong.
Instead, Man of the House
is a flimsy piece of by-the-number filmmaking, cobbled
together from bits and pieces of various genres. Not
even its title – shared with a 1995 Chevy Chase
vehicle – is original.
It
begins as a cops-and-robbers thriller, with Texas Ranger Roland Sharp
(Jones)
relentlessly pursuing a reluctant witness in an important drug case. Within the first five minutes, we get a
dramatic explosion, a chase scene, and the shooting of Sharp’s
attractive
female partner by assassins sent to kill the witness.
All
of this whets the appetite for more Rangers-versus-drug-dealing-scum
action. But then the movie veers into
full-blown comedy. Five University of Texas cheerleaders witness the
killing
of the witness and need protecting. How
better to offer them safety than by posting no-nonsense Roland to act
as a
live-in bodyguard, supported by two suitably buffoonish deputies?
This
unlikely plan allows for
fish-out-of-water jokes as madcap Roland learns to live with the young
women.
But Jones is best when he plays it deadpan, as in the Men in Black
movies –
give him a goofy grin, or a pratfall at a roller rink, and he just
looks . . . silly.
Director
Stephen Herek (The Mighty Ducks, Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Adventure) seems
uncertain what kind of comedy he wants to meld with his action film. There’s the early gross-out scene, when
Roland reaches deep inside a cow to recover evidence; there’s the
slapstick of
the aforementioned pratfall; and then there’s a tender romantic comedy,
as
Roland learns from his charges how to reach his estranged daughter.
Just
when the movie seems to have settled into comic mode, it reverts back
to a
tense action flick, as the killer discovers the whereabouts of the
girls. This discovery doesn’t take too
much work,
because the villain appears to be a good guy, an FBI agent – and the
fact that
I can reveal this fact without detracting from the movie (it’s never
much of a
secret) tells you a lot about how the thriller part of the film is
flawed.
The
final ten minutes then revert to the tone of the opening – few laughs
and lots
of tension, plus a dramatic chase scene. Suffice
it to say, our boy Roland gets his man.
Despite
all these flaws, the movie has its funny moments. One
young man in the audience of about 15
Friday night roared loudly at many of the sight gags.
Still, the biggest laughs came from the
trailer for Robots, not for anything in the feature.
And Man of
the House has its guilty pleasures. The
five cheerleader/witnesses – all with decent acting
resumes, but
none of whom most viewers are likely to recognize – are cute and
vivacious as
one could wish a cheerleader to be, and male viewers will enjoy them
bounding
around in wear skimpy clothing (a source of recurrent anxiety for poor
Roland).
Man
of the House also features performances by Cedric the Entertainer,
in some
comic scenes that seem added primarily so he can be in the movie, and
Anne
Archer, a fine actress who is wasted as Roland’s love interest, the
English
professor for one of the cheer squad.
This
review
appeared
in the Aberdeen American News on February 27, 2005.