 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
The Ladies Man
- Review Date: May 19, 2003
- R
- Genre: Comedy
- 2000
Common Sense Media says
Dumb -- SNL skits don't work as movies.
Parents say
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this movie gets a well-deserved R rating for frequent and explicit sexual references. Though intended to be comic, Leon's behavior is foolish, risky, hurtful, and exploitive. It may be an odd sign of progress in race relations that a movie like this can include a comic scene of a potential lynching, but it still may strike some viewers as uncomfortably insensitive to the tragic evidence of past racism.
What's the story?
First, the good news: The Ladies Man isn't very long, and it's not as bad as some of the other SNL movies, like Superstar and It's Pat. There are some very funny moments, and Will Ferrell is great as the husband of one of The Ladies Man's ladies and some of the other SNL and Kids in the Hall veterans provide some bright spots. And, it's always great to see Billy Dee Williams.
Now, the bad news. You can't make a five minute SNL sketch into a feature-length movie, even a short one. It will have to have stretches of obvious padding, which this flick has. Most attempts to make a sketch character work in a movie try one of two options. Either he has to stay one-dimensional and get tiring or he has to have more depth and become less funny. We get both here as this movie recycles the same jokes over and over and then asks us to believe that he's really a loveable guy. Meadows the screenwriter should do better by Meadows the performer, who is much more talented than this material.
Is it any good?
In THE LADIES MAN, Tim Meadows plays Leon Phelps, a late-night talk show host who drinks Courvoisier cognac as he does his broadcast and has been repeatedly fined by the FCC for using inappropriate language on the air. He and his beautiful producer Julie (Karyn Parsons) are fired and have to find new work. Julie gets organized and begins making pitches to other local stations. But Leon's approach to problems is to "go have sex and wait for something to randomly happen." He tries to track down a former lover who has written to offer him a fortune. He doesn't realize that the husbands of many of his ladies have banded together to go after him, communicating via a "victims of the smiling ass" website, a reference to a tattoo of a smiley face that is glimpsed as he jumps out of the bedroom windows. Much comic chaos ensues, including a very gross bar-food eating contest.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about the ways that some people use sex to hide from feelings of sorrow or loneliness, and how Julie sees something in Leon that no one else does.
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AGE
austin powers-like humor, but more explicit language
The joke is that the ladies' man is so tasteless, and such a womanizer that he is ridiculous. It certainly doesn't glamorize random sex and trashy talk, instead, the protagnist becomes more successful when he finds true love himself and helps others. There was no nudity that I recall, just a lot of bad language to generate the R rating.
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| Studio: | Paramount Pictures |
| Director: | Reginald Hudlin |
| Cast: | Billy Dee Williams, Lee Evans, Tim Meadows |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Run time: | 84 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | October 13, 2000 |
| DVD release date: | April 17, 2001 |
| MPAA rating: | R |
| MPAA explanation: | sexual content and language |
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