The Ladies Man: Movie Review, DVD Review (2000)

Directed by Reginald Hudlin, written by Tim Meadows, Dennis McNicholas and Andrew Steele, 84 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 2000)

Not ready for prime time--and certainly not ready for a feature film--Tim Meadows’ Leon Phelps, the alarmingly horny, Courvoisier-swilling, 1970’s lisping Lothario he plays on “Saturday Night Live,” isn’t in need of a woman. He’s in need of a script, preferably one that hasn’t plucked its comedic mojo straight out of a toilet.

Once again, “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels has turned a passably funny sketch on his passably funny show, and stretched it to its breaking point in an 84-minute movie that has a few big laughs, but hardly enough of them.

The director, Reginald Hudlin, working from a script by Meadows, Dennis McNicholas and Andrew Steele, wants his film to be as smooth and as infectious as the funkadelic music he highlights throughout, but a string of bad decisions prevents that from happening.

This is, after all, the sort of film that relies on the sort of sight gags that includes one character being tricked into eating feces, another that reveals the enormous reason why Phelps is considered a ladies man, and a nun stating on radio that she soon hopes to take the missionary position in Bangkok.

The story, such as it is, follows Phelps after he gets canned from his radio show for making obscene comments. What ensues is a film that follows Phelps from station to station as he makes the same verbal faux pas.

With Billy Dee Williams, Will Ferrell, Tiffani Amber-Thiessen and Julianne Moore, of all people, as a kinky, over-sexed clown (her performance is the year’s most embarrassing), “The Ladies Man” is a film that’s so crudely produced, disjointed and mostly unfunny, it should be stiffed at the cineplex.

Grade: D+