Tomcats (2001) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

This movie was despised by nearly every critic who saw it. Roger Ebert rated it no stars, a score which he rarely uses.

Now I'm not here to tell you that this is funnier than Blazing Saddles or wittier than Love and Death, but it is not without some comic moments. I think the critics hated it for three reasons:

1. It can be interpreted as misogynistic, and at best it shows how young men treat women as a necessary evil in their lives, bringing them paranoia, jealousy, lifeless marriages, the death of youthful joy, and the onset of unwanted commitments, all as the price of a little occasional sex. I doubt if this played well with the female critics.

2. The humor is juvenile, gross, sophomoric, jejune, and often downright dumb. It is the kind of movie that you might like, but you wouldn't admit it unless you are in high school. Most people who want to be seen as serious critics can't admit to liking this kind of crap unless they think it was written by Truffaut or John Sayles.

3. The structure of the movie is really screwed up. It sets up a basic premise, then introduces all sorts of unnecessary side tracks that have nothing to do with the original set-up, and lead you mindlessly away from the basic plotline for no apparent purpose except cheap gags.

Despite all those flaws, I laughed several times. To tell ya the truth, they came up with some pretty good gross-out gags.

Here's the premise: some young guys, seeing one of their friends be the first to marry, vow never to get married, and they argue over which of them really mean it, and which of them are wusses who will cave in. To settle the argument, they make a bet in which they each place $1000 in a high-yield investment, and the last guy to get married will collect the whole pot. It works like a tontine, except substituting the perceived figurative death of marriage for literal death.

Jump forward several years, and only two of them are left. One of them gets into trouble with some gambling debts (caused by wanting to impress a woman with his high roller status, of course), and his only hope to pay back the mob is to get the other guy married so he can collect the now substantial kitty.

Unfortunately, the other guy is the ultimate schmuck, who is unmarriageable in two ways. First, he is too shallow to want to be with a woman for any reason other than empty sex. Second, he is such a pig that no sane woman would marry him. He runs over his female golf partners with a golf cart, and doesn't even notice. Nor does he care when somebody points it out to him.

So the indebted guy conceives a plan to pay half of the kitty to a woman who will marry the schmucky guy. He finds the perfect woman, a gorgeous cop who once gave the schmucky guy her cherry on the beach, after which he abandoned her with a roll of quarters, and told her to hitchhike home. This lady will do it not only for the money, but also to degrade and humiliate the schmuck. 

As the critics noted, some of the humor didn't work. In an almost irrelevant sidebar, the "nice" guy has a date with a sadistic librarian who chains him up, then calls in her ancient granny for an S&M threesome. This was just downright silly, as was a scene in a sperm bank when the nice guy ended up turning in about a quart of semen, prompting high-fives from the staff.

But some of the humor was clever. 

• The cop and her partner parody those talky, sensitive cop shows when they discuss her love life while they clean a house of several violent, heavily-armed drug dealers.

• In another completely unrelated sidebar, the schmucky guy is diagnosed with a cancerous testicle. The doctor (Winchester from M.A.S.H.) tells him that they'll have to go in through his stomach and remove the testicle from behind - no, just kidding. Then when the surgeon removes the testicle the right way, the schmucky guy asks his friend to retrieve it for him. The friend drops the jar in the lab, the testicle gets kicked around a bit, and ends up rolling toward the cafeteria, and ... I think you can write the rest.  OK, it was dumb, and gross, and juvenile. I admit it. The critics were right. It was also pretty damned funny.

As you might guess, it is a young guy movie. Guys under 18 rate it a solid 6.2 at IMDb. In contrast, their moms (women over 30) rate it an execrable 2.5. Frankly, dads didn't much go for it either, with the oldest male demographic group at 3.9. So if you are a young guy, rent it, you'll like it, but watch it with your friends, and don't even think about telling mom and dad what you are watching. And, if I were you, I'd completely rule out watching it with mom as a family bonding thing, even if she's pretty hip. Trust me on this one.