Tommy lee Jones is back, and what does he portray in his latest offering? You guessed it, a cop! Well in fact a Texas law ranger, y'all! Jones plays Roland Sharp who is drafted in to protect five no-brainer Texas longhorn cheerleaders who were witness to a murder. So what's good about this movie? Absolutely nothing. Actually it's everything that you would expect a bad movie to be, and is a serious insult to the intelligence of anybody who has two brain cells to rub together.

It opens with Sharp and his ranger sidekick (a girl with eyebrows that should have been given their own part in the film), trying to track down a criminal named Morgan Ball who's done a very bad deed. In an early scene Cedric the Entertainer hides an incriminating mobile phone in a cow's rear, leaving Sharp to retrieve it. It's in the worst taste possible as far as gags go, and this is just the opening of the film! The baddie gets away, but is murdered in an alleyway leaving these five Cheerleaders as the only witnesses.

So they're brought in for questioning, and its cringeworthy stuff. They are idiotic bimbos who are more concerned with the hotty rating of the criminals than catching the murderer. The girls are all orange tan-pouting stereotypical cheerleaders, and if that wasn't bad enough the director has decided to give them all separate annoying identities: the neurotic one, the airhead, the leader, the tough talker etc. So to protect the girls, Sharp moves in to their house to keep watch on them in case someone – heaven forbid – tries to kill them. At this stage I was hoping that in some bizarre twist it would turn it to a slasher movie and everybody was hacked to pieces by a deranged madman.

The predictable and mundane happens in the house: Sharp assumes the father-figure role, telling them to cover themselves up, they can't go out, no mobile phones blah, blah, blah… In return they help Sharp, who is divorced and has a daughter who hardly ever sees her Daddy, to rekindle his flagging relationship and find love again with one of the girls' College Professors played by Anne Archer. They also help him catch the baddie who shot the baddie etc. Brilliant! Genius!

There are two shock factors to this movie: the first is that Sharp's Chief ranger is R. Lee Ermey, best know as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's classic Full Metal Jacket. The second is that one of the no-brainer Cheerleaders actually quotes Matthew Modine's Private Joker, squealing that Full Metal Jacket is her favourite film of all time!! What!? Now that's just plain wrong, and how was that ever allowed to happen? To allow a classic to be quoted or even named in one of the worst films to hit the cinema of 2005 is just beyond me.

Denise Woods

Man of the House is released on 8th April 2005.
Man of the House - Official website