Release Date: February 25, 2005
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Kelli Garner, Vanessa Ferlito, Monica Kena, Christina Milian, Paula Garcés, Cedric the Entertainer, Anne Archer, R. Lee Ermey, Shannon Marie Woodward
Directed by: Stephen Herek
Written by: Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, John J. McLaughlin
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (violence, sexual content, crude humor, drug references)
It’s true that we’ve never seen a movie with Tommy Lee Jones living in a house with a squad of college cheerleaders. But that’s about as far as the originality goes in Man of the House. Although Jones brings out a few laughs working within the fish-out-of-water formula, the movie is packed with clichés, dull characters, and mostly lame humor.
Jones plays hardened the Texas Ranger Ronald Sharp, a man on a mission to take down a hard-to-catch drug lord. Based on a lead from a quirky minister (Cedric the Entertainer), Sharp and his partner track down a witness and end up in a big firefight. The witness gets away and the chase happens to lead to a University of Texas pep rally, where a group of cheerleaders is coincidentally using a bathroom with a view of the nearby alley. When one of them notices the witness, now all scarred and beaten up, the other girls come to have a look just in time to watch a mysterious killer shoot the man dead.
Just when you think things can’t get more contrived, it turns out that the cheerleaders are unable to describe the killer. Or rather, they can’t collectively agree on a description, but they believe they’d be able to identify the man should they see him again. So the next step is for them to go through hours worth of studying mug shots -- which is one of the funnier scenes, nicely complimented by an appearance from the underused R. Lee Ermey -- but of course that doesn’t get them anywhere either. After that, the last option is for Sharp is to move in with the girls and protect them until they can crack the case.
It’s hard to hide the fact that Jones is enjoyable to watch playing this type of character. Unlike most men in his position -- who would undoubtedly be distracted by the scantly-clad teenage girls -- his character sticks to his job and keeps the girls in line. He makes them give up their cell phones, won’t let them leave the house without a police escort, and even installs an industrial strength air conditioner to be sure the girls cover their skin appropriately. These are some of the less amusing gags, and they unfortunately outweigh the better ones -- like when he’s forced to shop for feminine products; when he admits, while cleaning his gun, that his favorite movie is The Sound of Music; or when the girls help him woo an English professor played by Anne Archer.
As for the girls, none of them stand out. Aside from their looks, there’s nothing appealing about them, and it’s actually difficult to tell them apart sometimes. They’re played by Kelli Garner, Vanessa Ferlito, Monica Keena, Christina Milian, and Paula Garcés, and in fact, until I looked at the cast listing I thought there were six cheerleaders, not five. Which goes to show just how insubstantial an impression they made.
The film’s mediocrity isn’t limited to the poorly conceived characters or contrived plot devices; it’s also due to a handful of badly thought-out sequences. Nearly every scene with Cedric the Entertainer is unnecessary (which is a rare thing to say for the actor), and this is particularly true when he has a random dance competition with the cheerleaders in his church. There’s also a moment when Sharp mistakes a mischievous mascot for a murderer, which is another terribly unclever moment. And though the entire climax tries to be exciting, it, like the rest of the movie, happens a bit too conveniently and with a lot of excess baggage.
The film also aims for a sentimental side, and all you have to know is that it involves Sharp’s estranged daughter (played by Shannon Marie Woodward) and you can undoubtedly predict the rest. In any other movie this probably would have worked better, especially with Jones in the part, but it’s surrounded by too much uninspired material for it to take off.
Too bad the trio of screenwriters -- Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, and John J. McLaughlin -- couldn’t come up with more. In fact, it’s a bit scary to think of what Man of the House could have been without Tommy Lee Jones. He definitely can do well in this type of role, but he needs something else to compliment him, other than a group of ditzy cheerleaders.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)