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Man Of The House

2005, Movie, PG-13, 97 mins

Man Of The House: Review

MAN OF THE HOUSE
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Director Stephen Herek was lucky to have roped Tommy Lee Jones into starring in this derivative cheerleader comedy, because too much else has already been broughten for it to score points solely for originality. Granted, Jones offers little more than another rehash of his no-nonsense FUGITIVE persona — and a pretty lazy one at that — but he's still entertaining enough to float the rest of the movie. Just as Texas Ranger Roland Sharp (Jones) and his partner, Margaret Swanson (Liz Vassey), are closing in on Morgan Ball (Curtis Armstrong), a potential key witness in a government case, everything goes wrong: Swanson is badly wounded and Ball shot to death in a back alley. The murder was witnessed — in a manner of speaking — by five University of Texas cheerleaders who just happened to be catching a bit of fresh air at an open window. Granted, they can't agree on what the shooter looked like (except that he had really bad hair), but they saw enough to be considered potential targets of retaliation. To ensure their protection, Sharp agrees to move into the squad's spacious house and pose as their new assistant cheerleading coach. Of course the concrete-faced, no-fun Ranger's personality is the very antithesis of pep, hence the occasionally funny comedic situations that ensue. The girls don't intend to let themselves be pushed around by a man old enough to be their father and mean enough to confiscate their cell phones, so the arrangement quickly turns into a contest of wills. Even if the girls weren't exactly what you'd expect — Barb (Kelli Garner) is really dumb, Evie (Monica Keena) is really smart; squad captain Anne (Christina Milian) is really bossy, fiery Latina Therese (Paula Garces) is really temperamental and tough-gal Heather (Vanessa Ferlito) is the predictable wild card — their misadventures are. They get into a bar fight, give the nervous Sharp a makeover before his date with an English professor (Anne Archer), teach him how to reach out to his 17-year-old daughter (Shannon Marie Woodward) and, yes, use their pyramid-building skills to catch the bad guy. And if you can't figure out who that is the minute he first appears, you've either seen too few movies with mind-numbingly predictable plots or you've seen far too many. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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