I was immediately intrigued when I saw the previews for Man Of The House. Tommy Lee Jones, an amazing serious actor, doing something as teeny and comedic as this had to be at least slightly amusing and it was!!! As stated by other people doing reviews the premise is predictable and often times the humor was forced and set up but nonetheless it was funny!! Man Of The House is a story of a Texas Ranger on the trail of witnesses who will testify against a big time gangster. Unfortunately their key witness is murdered in the company of a group of five college cheerleaders. Now the Ranger, Roland Sharp, must do everything he can, include go undercover in order to protect these five girls from meeting the same fate as the first witness.
I will start by saying that flat out Tommy Lee Jones is too good for this film. He's just too powerful a screen presence, too brilliant an actor to be in a film with ultimately such little substance. However that does add to much of the comedy. It's harsh for everyone else in the film because they just get smacked by his presence. He does get to do a little action in the film in the chase scenes, and he still gets to be the big cowboy, and also play a bit of a leading romantic role. This guy still does a great job of action even at 60, and he looks great!! Enter the girls...unfortunately, they are five cheerleaders portrayed as downright dumb, materialistic, but with big hearts, very stereotypical and yet they're also supposed to be enrolled in big College classes...one of them is pre-med but dumber than a stick??? Most of them look like High School Cheerleaders and in fact it's not made very clear that they aren't High School until later on in the film which makes the sexual references, and Ranger Agents drooling over them very sleazy and even knowing they are in College, it still feels sleazy. I was pleased to see Vanessa Ferlito, from one of my favorite shows C.S.I. New York playing one of the brighter Cheerleaders of the group. The girls managed to play opposite Jones adequately and managed to pull off the comedic parts equally as well. I found the humor rather forced and some of the funnier scenes were poorly set up, it was like the film was based around three or four funny scenes and it was all about getting to those points but they still were funny. The dance off between the Cheerleaders and Cedric The Entertainer (who appears to have decided to be in every film this year) is funny, the roller skating scene, and a few others were very cute. Towards the end is when the film really got good, as the purpose and climax of the film finally started to play out and the chase scene near the end was very good. Overall this movie is worth seeing if not for any other reason than Tommy Lee Jones. It's cute and I think teenagers will like it more than anyone. It's not as good as Hitch but HUGE PROPS to both comedies for not having ANY of the nasty gross out humor that has plagued comedies for over 5 years. Both films are funny, and cute, and nice movies. FINALLY!! 7/10
I will start by saying that flat out Tommy Lee Jones is too good for this film. He's just too powerful a screen presence, too brilliant an actor to be in a film with ultimately such little substance. However that does add to much of the comedy. It's harsh for everyone else in the film because they just get smacked by his presence. He does get to do a little action in the film in the chase scenes, and he still gets to be the big cowboy, and also play a bit of a leading romantic role. This guy still does a great job of action even at 60, and he looks great!! Enter the girls...unfortunately, they are five cheerleaders portrayed as downright dumb, materialistic, but with big hearts, very stereotypical and yet they're also supposed to be enrolled in big College classes...one of them is pre-med but dumber than a stick??? Most of them look like High School Cheerleaders and in fact it's not made very clear that they aren't High School until later on in the film which makes the sexual references, and Ranger Agents drooling over them very sleazy and even knowing they are in College, it still feels sleazy. I was pleased to see Vanessa Ferlito, from one of my favorite shows C.S.I. New York playing one of the brighter Cheerleaders of the group. The girls managed to play opposite Jones adequately and managed to pull off the comedic parts equally as well. I found the humor rather forced and some of the funnier scenes were poorly set up, it was like the film was based around three or four funny scenes and it was all about getting to those points but they still were funny. The dance off between the Cheerleaders and Cedric The Entertainer (who appears to have decided to be in every film this year) is funny, the roller skating scene, and a few others were very cute. Towards the end is when the film really got good, as the purpose and climax of the film finally started to play out and the chase scene near the end was very good. Overall this movie is worth seeing if not for any other reason than Tommy Lee Jones. It's cute and I think teenagers will like it more than anyone. It's not as good as Hitch but HUGE PROPS to both comedies for not having ANY of the nasty gross out humor that has plagued comedies for over 5 years. Both films are funny, and cute, and nice movies. FINALLY!! 7/10