Dr. T and the Women: Special Edition DVD Review (2000)

Not so special.

From Robert Altman, this 2000 film stars Richard Gere as the most popular OB/GYN in Dallas history, so you know right away what that means--since this is yet another vanity piece in a long line of vanity pieces for Mr. Gere, scores of women will be doing anything, absolutely anything, for the lucky chance to slide into his mink-lined stirrups.

And right there you have the film’s problem. Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt if many women find it titillating to strip naked for a Pap smear from any gynecologist--let alone one who looks like Richard Gere.

Overlooking that little nugget, Altman builds his film around it, which maybe could have worked if “Dr. T and the Women” had been successful in mining its humor from the unlikelihood of its recurring situation--a gaggle of bitchy, wealthy Texas women in a rush to experience the surprisingly warm touch of their doctor’s cool speculum.

But “Dr. T and the Women” isn’t remotely funny and, worse, it isn’t at all interested in the women it so flamboyantly parades across the screen; they’re just an excuse for the director to present another ensemble piece, one that isn’t lifted by its enormous cast, but one that is positively burdened by it.

It’s curious. Altman has gathered a terrific group of actors--Helen Hunt, Farrah Fawcett, Laura Dern, Shelley Long, Tara Reid, Kate Hudson, Liv Tyler, Lee Grant, Janine Turner, Robert Hays, Matt Malloy and Andy Richter--but this time, he isn’t able to make even one of them take shape as an individual character.

Indeed, for 122 minutes, his screen isn’t clogged with interesting people, as it was in “M*A*S*H,” “Short Cuts” and “The Player,” but with actors misbehaving in desperate attempts to stand out from the crowd.

The film, which is about what becomes of Dr. T’s glorious life when his wife, Kate (Fawcett), suffers a breakdown, his daughter, Dee Dee (Hudson), prepares for her wedding, and a hot golf pro (Hunt) turns on the romantic charm, does feature the chaos Altman is famous for choreographing, but Anne Rapp’s hackneyed script and Altman’s unusually lax direction makes it all unwatchable.

Rated R. Grade: D