Tomcats in Love

Tomcats," the latest in a long slew of mindless gross-out comedies, focuses on the exploits of fledgling cartoonist Michael Delaney (Jerry O'Connell), Kyle Brenner (the immensely sleazy yet inexplicably funny Jake Busey) and their eclectic cronies (including Steve, a proctologist portrayed by "SNL" regular Horatio Sanz). During the first of their friends' weddings, this motley group of frat rats amasses a cash pool that will inevitably be doled out to the last bachelor standing.\nFlash-forward to the present and the Las Vegas wedding of Steve, and only two men remain single. Michael places himself in a rather precarious situation through an ill-advised bout of gambling and finds himself $51,000 in the hole. The men of "Tomcats," akin to a vast percentage of actual men, seem to do a great deal of their thinking through the main vein.\nMichael has a month to pay off his debt or he will inevitably sleep with the fishes. Enter Natalie (Shannon Elizabeth), a thwarted, former flame of Kyle's and a vice cop to boot. She's pissed about the way in which she was discarded and eagerly sides with Michael in an attempt to marry off and screw over Kyle to collect half the cache.\nThe greatest problem with "Tomcats" lies in the divergent acting styles. O'Connell is a bland leading man with awkward comedic timing, but he is likable enough in a scrubbed, preppy sort of way. Elizabeth seems to have entered a competition with Denise Richards to figure out who is the worst actress. Busey churns out a performance oozing with machismo sleaziness, and he's funny. Bill Maher as a Jewish gangster registers nicely in a cameo that gives the proceedings much-needed class and style.\nJokes run from cancerous testicles to lactating nipples, and the sperm bank standard recently seen in "Road Trip" and "Way of the Gun" is also displayed, albeit to lesser success. Much of the film's humor is hit and miss, mostly miss. The flick is an utterly mixed bag. Imagine "Porky's" or "American Pie" displaced into the post-collegiate years minus the breasts and much of the humor and what remains is "Tomcats," an unoriginal and predominantly unfunny turd of a movie.