Tomcats (2001) / Comedy

MPAA Rated: R for strong sexual content, crude humor, and language
Running Time: 95 min.

Cast: Jerry O'Connell, Jake Busey, Shannon Elizabeth, Horatio Sanz, Jaime Pressly, Bernie Casey, David Ogden Stiers, Garry Marshall (cameo), Bill Maher (cameo), Dakota Fanning (cameo)
Director: Gregory Poirier
Screenplay: Gregory Poirier
Review published April 17, 2001

Gregory Poirier, screenwriter for the also bad films See Spot Run and Gossip, takes his first turn filming one of his screenplays with Tomcats, another in a series of gross-out comedies to come down the pike since the success of  American Pie and Scary Movie.  Not so coincidentally, those movies also featured Shannon Elizabeth , whose looks are about the only thing that could maintain my interest in this incredibly unfunny, awful film that ranks easily among 2001's worst (and that says a lot!).

The storyline involves a bet made between several bachelors while attending a friend's wedding that they all put money in a pool every month and whoever is the last one not to get married will get the entire pot.  The protagonist of the story, Michael (O'Connell, Mission to Mars), loses a crapload of money at a Vegas casino, so he concocts a plan to get the womanizing playboy named Kyle (Busey, Held Up) hitched to collect in order to pay off the seedy casino owner threatening his life.  The plot involves finding the one woman Kyle ever cared about and getting her in on the plan to woo him into marriage.

To say this film is garbage would be an insult to garbage.  Unlike the other dumb, crude comedies that the makers of Tomcats try so hard to emulate, this one could not make me laugh, snicker, smile or even acknowledge mentally that something might have been even remotely amusing.  The women are all cookie-cutter sex objects while every man is a supercharged horndog that thinks about nothing but sex.  The fact that in the end it tries to play the romantic card is the biggest insult of all. 

There's nothing here but extremely unappealing supporting actors, a truly bad script that aimlessly drifts from one puke-inducing gag to another without furthering the plot, and directing that shockingly tries to be cute, even though it's dealing with one of the most mean-spirited anti-female messages put on celluloid.  The humongous pile of dung is so rancid that if a videotape of it were tossed in a litter box, a real tomcat might try to cover it up. 

Qwipster's rating:

©2001 Vince Leo